Greenwood picked the worst time to go into a hitting and scoring slump.
After scoring only two runs in its past three games, the nightmare continued for the Woodmen as they were shut out by Bloomington South, 6-0, in the opening round of the Class 4A Center Grove sectional on Monday.
Greenwood ended the season on a four-game losing streak and lost five of its last six games. Still, it was quite a turnaround for first-year coach Sara Allison compared to past seasons, as the squad finished 13-12 for its first winning campaign since 2016.
“Knowing we have a winning record, we can build this program. They are going to be fine,” Allison said. “I had a great group of girls willing to go after every single pitch in every single at bat. They wanted to win and have fun, and that’s what we did. I loved it.”
What Allison didn’t love was the dearth of runs, something that has been baffling to Allison after the impressive improvement the Woodmen showed this year at the plate.
Greenwood scored 10 or more runs seven times this season, compared to just three last year.
The Woodmen were competitive in most of their games and showed dramatic improvement not only at batting, but pitching and fielding.
Bloomington South was the exact opposite of Greenwood, posting 16 runs while allowing just one over its last two regular-season games.
One thing both teams had in common was they were shut out by Center Grove by an almost identical score. The Trojans blanked Greenwood 11-0 and beat Bloomington South 10-0 earlier this season. By topping the Woodmen, the Panthers earned the right to face the host team in a Tuesday semifinal.
Monday started badly for Greenwood with a hit batter on the first pitch. The Panthers used that as a springboard to score three first-inning runs that effectively ended it. Bloomington South scored another run in the fourth and two more for insurance in the sixth.
The Panthers had eight hits and didn’t commit an error, while senior pitcher Kinsey Clopton scattered three hits and struck out nine Woodmen.
“We have been scoring and hitting a lot, but then our biggest hitters just die,” Allison said, summing up the season’s end.
Greenwood’s only hits were a double by freshman Lillian Disney and singles by seniors Emma Chism and Breanna Pierce.
“We are losing six seniors, a lot of starters, but we will have a lot of freshmen coming in that will probably be starting right away,” Allison said. “We’ll have one senior starter (Haylie Hendricks) back.”
