Prep softball: Warriors win first Fairfield Tournament title

Jun. 14—FAIRFIELD — They've been playing softball together for several years, even before either were wearing high school uniforms.

Fairfield senior Hannah Simpson, however, would have loved it if she and Van Buren County senior Chelsey Huff was wearing the same orange and black uniform this season.

"I've been trying to get her to transfer here for a few years. She just won't pull the trigger," Simpson said with a smile. "I told her if she came here, she could take us back to state.

"She told me she wanted to take her team to state."

Huff and the Warriors played like a team more than capable of making it to state on Saturday. After nearly matching her own school record for strikeouts in the pitching circle in a 2-0 win over 13th-ranked (4A) Clear Creek-Amana, Huff doubled and scored two of the six runs put up by Van Buren County between the fourth and fifth innings of a 6-3 win over the fifth-ranked (4A) Trojans in the championship game of 41st Fairfield Softball Invitational.

"I've always just kind of laughed Hannah off anytime she's brought up coming to Fairfield," Huff said. "I've been at Van Buren my whole life. I would love to take this team and go to state. It's obviously not a one-man show. Everyone has to come together, play defense, hit the ball and do everything to be successful."

Huff found motivation for success over the two-day Fairfield Invitational by taking a look at the programs handed out during the tournament. Besides the rosters of every team in this year's tournament is a list of the teams that have won the championship.

One name was absent from that list. Huff was determined to change that.

"We've been coming here to this tournament for several years and I never realized that Van Buren had never won it before," Huff said. "It was going back to 1980 and our name wasn't on that list. I was telling the older girls that we needed to get our names on that paper. We've proven that we should be one of those top teams. We proved we can play with these girls that are part of ranked teams. We should be noticed for what we are doing."

Huff certainly got everyone's attention in Saturday's first semifinal, striking out the first six Clear Creek-Amana hitters pitching with incredible precision and velocity. The Clippers managed just three hits off Huff, the only three base runners that would reach in the game.

"I broke the school record on Monday with 16 strikeouts (in a 9-1 win at New London), but to get that close to that mark against a ranked team in Class 4A is crazy," Huff said. "The defense was there for me whenever the ball was hit, but the best feeling as a pitcher is when you get the batter to swing and completely miss. I've been throwing a lot of riseballs and that movement is catching a lot of girls off guard."

Fairfield's path to the championship game including an equally impressive win over Wilton, the top-ranked team in Class 2A. While the Warriors advanced to the title game in a low-scoring affair, the Trojans outslugged the Beavers winning 10-6 with the key blow coming off the bat of Simpson who snapped a 5-5 tie in the fourth with a grand slam home run.

"When the bases are loaded like that, all I'm thinking about it making contact and doing my job to bring in those runs," Simpson said. "It was very deep in the count. It got to 3-2 and I knew she (Wilton pitcher Grace Medlock) wasn't going to want to walk me with the bases loaded.

"Sure enough, there it was middle in. I just ripped it out of here."

Simpson finished the Fairfield Invitational with five hits, five RBIs and three runs scored in three games for the Trojans. Despite not being in the best of moods, according to her father, prior to the start of the tournament, Simpson drove in five runs and scored three times in three games while collecting five hits including a double on the first pitch thrown to the senior first baseman in Friday's 8-2 opening-day win over Pekin.

"I just felt going into Friday that I was in a slump. I always feel that way," Simpson said. "I told me dad he needed to throw me some batting practice. We do that before every game. I always feel better about myself afterwards. When I hit that double, I started to feel like things weren't going to go too bad for me this weekend.

"I guess it works for me. Sometimes when I'm angry, I just take it out on the softball."

Simpson would face Huff just once in Saturday's championship game, striking out to end the first inning. Jenna Norris, however, would follow the strike out with an RBI double to left that put Fairfield up 1-0.

Huff would ultimately pitch just two innings in her championship game start, allowing back-to-back run-scoring hits to Bailey Hird and Coty Engle in the second as Fairfield built a 3-0 lead. Aly Campbell would take over in the pitching circle, improving to 7-0 by pitching five scoreless innings against the Trojans while helping spark a Warrior rally with a two-out home run in the fourth that pulled Van Buren County within 3-2.

"I just knew I needed to hit my spots and keep it low because they (Fairfield) are a good hitting team," Campbell said. "It definitely helped to hit that home run. It seemed like that really got us going."

Hits to open the fifth inning by Tessa Sayer and Callie Kracht tied the score at 2-2. Brooklyn and Annabell Cormier would add a pair of run-scoring hits later in the frame, driving in two of the final three runs that would put the Warriors on top for good and into the Fairfield Invitational record books as the fourth straight first-time champion.

"Right now, I would say our team isn't going to be afraid of playing anyone in the state," Van Buren County head softball coach Randy Smith said. "We've got great pitching, we're getting some big hits and we're playing with a lot of confidence.

"Some of the girls asked me if we had ever won this tournament before. I wasn't sure. The response is that we've won it now."

— Scott Jackson can be reached at sjackson@ottumwacourier.com. Follow him on Twitter@CourierScott.