SAPPINGTON – The first inning for the Jackson Indians gave new meaning to the phrase “a bloop and a blast.”
After five of the first six Jackson hitters were asked to either slap or bunt, Kimmora Carothers stepped to the plate with two outs.
‘Small ball’ was not on her mind.
“I know my job. I was ready to bring it,” Carothers said.
Carothers blasted a two-run homer over the left field wall to highlight a five-run first inning and Jackson never looked back, defeating Lindbergh 10-4 Monday in the Class 5 District 1 championship game at Lindbergh High.
Jackson (33-4), which won its first district title since 1998, advanced to a Class 5 state quarterfinal to face Francis Howell (24-6) at noon Saturday at Jackson High School.
Jackson defeated Francis Howell 2-1 on Aug. 26 at Chesterfield Valley.
Both Lindbergh, which played as the visiting team, and Jackson set the stage for productive first innings thanks to their outstanding opening acts.
Lindbergh junior Allie Waldron, the area leader in runs scored, smacked a single to right, stole second, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on a squeeze bunt from sophomore Kristin Cochran to give the Flyers an early 1-0 lead.
Jackson sophomore pitcher Ashlyn Dawes walked the next two hitters, barely missing on pitches that she thought found the strike zone. It prompted a lap around the mound, a firm squeezing of the rosin bag and a visit from Jackson coach Shawn Wilding.
“I was frustrated, but I just realized I needed to hit the strike zone and rely on my defense because they’re pretty good,” Dawes said.
Dawes struck out Lindbergh sophomore Kiaura Lewis, her first of 10 punchouts for the game, and opened the curtain for a momentous bottom half of the first inning for Jackson.
After a slap single and stolen base by Jackson’s own talented leadoff hitter, Kaiden Weisbrod, Dawes executed a perfect sacrifice bunt. She beat the throw to first base and Weisbrod never stopped, racing all the way from second base to score the tying run.
“I thought, ‘Small ball is on my brain right now,’” Wilding said.
With runners at second and third, senior Zoe Flath dropped down the fourth bunt of the inning. Lindbergh pitcher Gabby McBride tried to shovel it quickly to Waldron at the plate, but the ball and the runner arrived simultaneously. The ball scooted to the backstop and two runs scooted home for Jackson.
“We never really do that in games,” said clean-up hitter Kameryn Tucker, who delivered a sacrifice bunt in the inning. “I’m in the four hole and I can’t tell you the last time I bunted, but we all executed. It felt good to see that the bunts worked and that the practice paid off.”
With two outs and Flath on second base, Carothers stepped to the plate uninterested in joining the bunt parade. She found a one-strike pitch to her liking and blasted a moon shot over the left field wall to make the score 5-1.
“I crushed it,” Carothers said.
Waldron responded for Lindbergh with her own two-run, moon shot in the top of the second inning, driving the first pitch she saw over the right-center field wall to slice the deficit to 5-3.
Waldron went 3-for-3, adding a triple in the fifth inning. She received the ultimate measure of respect when she was intentionally walked in the sixth inning despite Jackson having a six-run lead.
During the district tournament, Waldron went 6-for-7 with five walks. She scored 8 runs and had a double, triple, two homeruns and stole seven bases.
“(Waldron) is an unbelievable athlete. She loves the game, she plays the game the right way and she does it all. She’s the total package,” Lindbergh coach Darin Scott said.
Each time Lindbergh threatened to climb back into the game, Jackson had the answer.
Three more bunts in the bottom of the second inning set up Tucker with second and third and two outs. This time, she swung away and delivered a two-strike flare into right center that plated a pair of runs and increased the Jackson lead to 7-3.
“(McBride) started coming in high and inside on me. I fouled one off, and then I found the gap,” Tucker said.
Dawes cruised through the next two innings with four strikeouts on 20 total pitches, and in the bottom of the fourth, Jackson added to its lead.
RBI singles by Flath and Miley Conklin and a delayed double steal pushed the Indians’ lead to 10-3.
“They’re a 33-win team for a reason,” Scott said. “They’re a multifaceted, talented team. They can run, they have power, they play great defense and they’re well-coached. They had a great game plan and executed it to a ‘T.’ They did to us what we do to a lot of other teams.”
Lindbergh (23-8), which had won 14 consecutive games, did not fade away gently. After Waldron tripled in the fifth and scored on a Cochran double, the Flyers loaded the bases in both the sixth and seventh innings.
But Dawes executed a clutch pitch to earn two-out strikeouts in both innings, including a swing-and-miss from senior Nicole Thomas on her 132nd pitch of the game.
“I could feel the pressure and I was getting tired, but I just knew we needed to get the third out so we could claim the district title,” Dawes said.
And that district title was a long time coming, with the last one occurring the year that “Titanic” was playing in theaters.
Jackson is not ready for its voyage to be cut short before docking at the final four.
“We feel unstoppable right now,” Tucker said.