Rebels down 59ers to capture title

Updated: June 11, 2011 8:42PM

INDIANAPOLIS — There was a reason the Roncalli fans hung a New York Yankees No. 13 Rodriguez jersey from the fence behind the top row of the bleachers.

It only took seven pitches into the top of the first inning for Andrean fans to witness that reason.

Andrean’s head coach, Henry Ryan, said it went about 250 feet.

Might have been more like 237.

Either way, Andrea Rodriguez’s towering home run was plenty long enough to clear the fence 210 feet from home plate. You could almost hear Yankees’ play-by-play announcer John Sterling yelling his trademark, “It’s an A-Bomb from A-Rod!”

And it was all the Rebels needed to win their third IHSAA softball state title, cruising past the 59ers 8-0 in Saturday’s Class 3A championship at Ben Davis High School.

Those three were the only earned runs Andrean (25-9) starting pitcher Nikki Steinbach gave up. The other five were unearned due to uncharacteristic mistakes on defense by the 59ers.

“We expected it would be a 1-0 game — at least that’s what I told the kids,” Ryan said. “But (Roncalli) is a good hitting team. We did our scouting and they’re hitting almost .400 as a team. We were trying to keep the ball away from a couple of their hitters.”

Specifically, he mentioned Rodriguez and Roncalli (28-7) leadoff hitter and pitcher Kendra Lynch, who had four strikeouts in the complete game. She also had two hits and two runs scored, including a scalded single on the very first pitch out of Steinbach’s hand.

But Rodriguez’s shot wasn’t Steinbach’s fault. It wasn’t a gift down the middle or a badly-located changeup. It was a rise ball that was at eye level, or higher depending on who you asked.

“It was at her eyes,” Ryan said. One of his assistants chimed in with, “I thought it was at her forehead.” Ryan’s daughter raised the level.

“From my angle, it looked like it was above her head,” Andrean catcher and Mental Attitude Award winner Kelly Ryan said. “I have no idea how she hit that pitch.”

Let alone hit it so far. Then again, Roncalli’s A-Rod had six home runs on the season before that blast and a huge slugging percentage of .762. She added a RBI double on Saturday, bringing her season-ending slugging to a Barry Bonds-like .806.

“It’s a credit to the hitter,” Henry Ryan said about the home run. “I didn’t care if we walked her on four unhittable pitches. I just didn’t want to give her anything (easy) to hit.”

Even the double was an inside pitch that Henry also deemed “unhittable,” but her bat speed was too much.

It’s the second time Roncalli has defeated Andrean in the softball state final game — its first title in 1999 came against the 59ers.

It’s also the second time in three years Andrean was shut out in the 3A final. In 2009 New Palestine throttled the 59ers 10-0 in five innings. Dating back to 2007 — Andrean’s last state title, a 2-0 victory over Boonville — the 59ers haven’t scored in 15 straight innings in the championship game.

“It sucks being my last game, but we still got to the finals, and we kept playing hard until the end,” said senior Meghan Bridgeman. “After the home run, I just told everyone to put it behind us and think positive.”

Bridgeman was right. Despite being down 6-0 in the fourth inning, Andrean had chances to get back into the game. It had two runners on in both the fourth and fifth innings, but couldn’t get the clutch hit.

“We had our chances,” Henry Ryan said. “In prior games we took advantage of those opportunities and today we didn’t.”

It didn’t hurt Roncalli’s chances at thwarting Andrean’s chances that its best pitcher was in the circle. Statistically, Lynch doesn’t look like the Rebels’ ace — she had half as many strikeouts and a slightly higher ERA than Kristen Thomas — but Henry Ryan knew better through his scouting.

“That was definitely their best pitcher,” he said. “She was their competitor who hits her spots.”

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