T-Wolves catch on

COEUR d'ALENE - Freshman Amber Hawkes started the season as the No. 1 pitcher on the junior varsity but on Friday afternoon, she found herself batting cleanup for the first time in the most important game of the season for the Lake City Timberwolves.

In the fourth inning of a scoreless game, Hawkes produced the biggest hit of the game to date - though it didn't exactly unfold by design.

After Casey Stangel led off the inning with a double off the left field fence, Hawkes lined a single to right field to score courtesy runner MacKenzie Brown with the first run of the game. Top-seeded Lake City went on to beat visiting Coeur d'Alene 3-0 in the 5A Region 1 softball second-place game to earn a trip to state.

"Actually, it was a missed sign," Lake City coach Laura Tolzmann said. "It was a missed bunt sign, and she comes up with the hit to score. She's got a great stick for us, but we were trying to manufacture runs, but then it's like, 'OK, we'll take that.'"

Lake City (21-5) advances to state starting Thursday in Twin Falls. The T-Wolves will open vs. Rocky Mountain (20-7) of Meridian, the fourth-place team from District 3, at 4 p.m. PDT.

Second-seeded Coeur d'Alene finished 21-8, missing out on a trip to state for the first time since 2001.

After her RBI single, Hawkes, who came up to the varsity halfway through the season, stole second and advanced to third on an error on the play. Sophomore Kory Kritz singled her home with a bad-hop grounder over the shortstop's head.

In the sixth, Katie Rowe walked and stole second, and scored on Stangel's double down the left-field line.

"We wanted to be aggressive, and getting runners on every inning was our goal," Tolzmann said.

Stangel, a freshman, pitched a two-hitter with 11 strikeouts.

"Our bats ... we had just not hit the ball well this whole week," said Coeur d'Alene coach Larry Bieber, whose team has just one senior. "Last week we limped through that week ... I don't really have an answer for that, because last time we played, we had 10 hits off of Casey. Our expectation was, we were going to put the ball in play at least. Young team, it can be a weakness and a strength. We made a lot of young mistakes last week, and we made a few in this game. But like I told them, I'm so proud of these kids. We had a great year."

In other state 5A openers next Thursday, Post Falls (14-9) will play Mountain View (21-8) of Meridian, the second-place team from District 3, at 2 p.m. PDT. Highland (23-9) of Pocatello, the District 5-6 champ, plays defending state champion Timberline (21-7) of Boise, the No. 3 team from District 3, at 4; and Eagle (20-9), the District 3 champ, plays at 2 vs. the winner of Saturday's play-in game between Capital (10-19) and Skyline (25-7).

Coeur d'Alene 000 000 0 - 0 2 1

Lake City 000 201 x - 3 5 0

Lindsie Scholwinski and Tiegan Lockwood; Casey Stangel and Mariah Linahan. W - Stangel (16-5). L - Scholwinski (14-6).

HITS: Cd'A - Parker, Lockwood. LC - Stangel 2, Hawkes, Kritz 2. 2B - Stangel 2.