Lady Wildcats win first district title with walk-off
“We just made history.”
Those four words rang out from the excited huddle of Cassville players and coaches as they were celebrating their first ever district softball title on Monday night, a 7-6 walk-off win over Doniphan.
With two outs and the bases loaded, sophomore right fielder Naveah Johnson, whose spot in the rotation was being handled by fellow sophomore Joei Blankenship all game, was thrust into her first at-bat of the contest with the title on the line after having scored two runs off Blankenship’s bat.
“I told her we need to get up there and we need to get a couple, maybe a strike before we start swinging the bat,” said Lori Videmschek, Cassville softball coach. “That was a key for us. I thought maybe we could get to their pitcher like they got to ours a little bit.”
As her coach instructed, Johnson watched the first pitch go for a ball, and when the second came right down the middle, she smacked it through the infield to center, allowing sophomore Aubrey Stoufer to plate the winning run.
“[Coach Videmschek] said, ‘You can do this — there’s nobody better,’” Johnson said. “I was so nervous. I was like, the game is really on my back. My team was just cheering me on and saying, ‘You can do this; you can do this.’ So I was just trying to think positive. I prayed before I went into bat, so I was pretty confident, sort of.
“[Coach] V told me to sit back on a few and just let a few strikes go in before I hit the ball. I let the first one go, and then the second one was just like perfect. [Assistant Coach Simon] Beeson and I were working on that exact pitch in the cage before, and I was like, okay, that’s it.”
Johnson said watching the ball rocket through Donettes to the outfield was an experience she will never forget.
“It was just insane,” she said. “We’d never won a championship, and we finally won — and it was because of my hit. I was already in tears before I left first base.”
“She just did what I asked her to do — head down, draw the ball up through the middle, and it was a humongous hit,” Videmschek said. “I mean, that was awesome for us.”
The final inning was indicative of the patience and persistence Cassville displayed throughout the contest. After jumping out to a 4-0 lead in the first two innings, the Lady Wildcats watched it evaporate in the fifth, as the Donettes used key hits and timely baserunning on passed balls to knot it at 4 each.
Stoufer, who pitched a full game and struck out 13 batters, said the fifth inning was a struggle, but she was able to overcome it.
“She got rattled a little bit in that that fifth inning, and they come back and they took advantage of a few walks,” Videmschek said. “Once she got that rosin [on the slick ball] a little bit, that helped her, and she was able to to step up and start pitching a little bit. Our defense behind her worked hard, and that’s the whole key for us. I’m super proud of these kids. We didn’t quit. We could have easily quit but we didn’t. We kept battling back.”
Stoufer was undaunted as she came up to bat in the next inning, nailing a solo home run with two outs to put Cassville up 5-4.
“After I came out of the [fifth] inning, I went out there and I really just had to think of my team first,” Stoufer said. “I really I just really, honestly, wanted to win it. And, I felt bad that I was putting my team down. I knew I had to be the leader and step up. I’m in the circle, right; so I have to lead out there.
“It feels amazing. We all said it: third time’s a charm. And, we did it. I’m real proud of our team.”
The Lady Wildcats entered the final inning down 6-5 after giving up a pair of runs in the top of the sixth, giving the Donettes their first and only lead of the game.
In the top of the seventh, junior Kyler Hayward caught an infield fly, Stoufer struck out the second batter and the third flew out to left field.
In the bottom of the seventh, Hayward led off but grounded out to the shortstop. After that, patience paved the way for the Lady Wildcats. Junior Kalee Lowe battled to a full count and was walked, then Stoufer did the same and junior Lauren Sparkman took a third walk to load the bases.
Feeling the pressure, Doniphan changed pitchers. Against the new arm, junior Elly Ramaeker again loaded the count, then fouled one off and struck out to put the game on the brink.
Still down by one, sophomore Tomi Blankenship loaded the count for the fourth time in the inning, and she held her nerve on a low pitch to walk the loaded bases and tie the contest.
“I just told them to keep working, keep working; keep making sure your getting good pitches and look at the zone,” Videmschek said. “Take a pitch if you have to get your timing on her. But I’m going to tell you, my little right fielder, she doesn’t get a bat much. And, when she does bat, she does a lot of bunting. I looked at her and I said, ‘Listen, get you a pitch to hit. Take the first one, get you a pitch to hit and get the bat on it.”
The third time was the charm for Cassville, having reached the district title bout in 2021 and 2022 but falling to Logan-Rogersville, 8-4, and Seneca, 1-0, respectively. It was especially sweet considering the No. 2 seed Lady Wildcats had very little knowledge of No. 4 Doniphan, a team that has bounced around classes and districts for years and was a district runner up in 2021 and champion in 2022.
“We didn’t know much about them,” Videmschek said. “I mean, you can look at the scores and see some of the teams, but that far down, we don’t know what their competition is like. I just know our competition that we play here is really tough, and we’re playing a lot of Class 4 and Class 5 schools. When you’re playing Neosho twice, McDonald County and Nevada; we played Lebanon, and we played West Plains twice. I mean, they’re going to give us game after game of tough games, and we have to fight through that.
“That was a big key for us to just keeping battling. I tell them, you got to believe in yourself and believe in everybody else. If they do that, they’re going to be fine. I’m just super proud that they they could have easily laid down — but we didn’t today.”
The success Cassville has had under Videmschek can be greatly attributed to the culture of the program and its evolution in recent years.
“The first part of the year, we would have just laid down and died and we did that a few times,” Videmschek said. “I know we played Hartville and didn’t play real well, and we had a talk in the outfield about playing not to lose. You want to play to win, not to lose. After that meeting, we had we turned things around. Aubrey started pitching better. We started hitting better. Things sort of just took place.
“I think after that we won 11 of our 13 games. That was the whole key, and I don’t think they realized. But that is what I’m talking about in changing that culture. You want to have that winning mentality of going out there, and you can compete with anybody that you play.”
Videmschek said that mentality was fully on display Monday.
“The kids kept fighting and kept fighting,” she said. “They never quit. I mean, you can say that — never.”
Cassville will be in sectional (state quarterfinal) action against Fatima (32-4) on Saturday at 1 p.m. at Lion’s Club Field in Westphalia.
