Louisburg softball season comes to close with loss in regional semis

EUDORA — The Louisburg softball team was hoping for a big run through the postseason.

Unfortunately, the Wildcats saw that run end a little prematurely.

Louisburg, the No. 10 seed, traveled to Eudora for the Class 4A regional tournament on May 14 and squared off with No. 7 Tonganoxie. Despite getting out to an early lead, Louisburg’s season came to a close with a 5-1 loss to the Chieftains.

“Going into any regional, you have to expect you are going to get the best version of any team,” Louisburg coach Nick Chapman said. “That’s what we got from Tongie. They hit the ball really well. We would make an adjustment and they did something else to find a way to keep their offense rolling. 

“We played top notch defense. We turned three double plays. We made all of our fundamental defensive plays. Izzy and Megan pitched really well. It came down to they hit the ball and we didn’t.”

The Wildcats got off to a good start in the first inning. Rylee Hickey led off with a walk, while Jenna Cauthon and Megan Quinn followed with back-to-back singles to load the bases.

Hickey went on to score on a wild pitch and Louisburg took a 1-0 lead.

Tonganoxie answered with a run of its own in the bottom of the first inning. The game remained tied till the bottom of the fourth inning when the Chieftains scored three to take a 4-1 lead. 

The Chieftains added another run in the sixth and the Wildcats were unable to get much offense after that first inning.

Louisburg senior Izzy Moreland got the start for Louisburrg and pitched four innings and gave up four runs and struck out four. Quinn came in for the final two innings of relief.

The Wildcats ended their season with an 11-15 record, which was the most wins in a decade, and they had to say goodbye to a 5-member senior class in Moreland, Quinn, Cauthon, Hickey and Ashley Moreau — who all have been varsity starters since their freshmen season.

“I’m so proud of this team and the season we had,” Chapman said. “We had our banquet to celebrate our season and I realized we beat all but 2 teams in our league this year. That’s pretty sweet. We lost by 1 to a 6A state tournament team in Blue Valley West. We could have beat Lansing, a pretty solid 5A team that gave Spring Hill fits. We beat the teams we should have beaten and we won a lot of close games that could have gone either way. Eleven wins is nothing to be upset about. 

“These seniors have been put in a lot of work to help us get to this point and they are handing it off to the underclassmen to continue that work and I believe we are only going to get better from here.”