By By SCOTT NOVAK / Dowagiac Daily News
STEVENSVILLE - Years of frustration at the hands of the Lakeshore Lancers were washed away in a sea a tears Saturday afternoon.
Dowagiac celebrated its first district title since 1994 with a 4-3, 13-inning victory over defending Division 2 state champion Lakeshore.
The victory was the third in a row over the Lady Lancers. Dowagiac swept Lakeshore on May 17 to capture the Big 16 Conference West Division championship. Those two game also went extra innings.
Behnke was close, actually Dowagiac and Lakeshore have played 35 innings this season. The Chieftains and Lady Lancers went 12 and 10 innings respectively back in May.
Holly Lowe scored the winning run in the top of the 13th inning as she drew a walk and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt by Ashley Willis.
A wild pitch moved Lowe to third where she scored standing up on a single by Calie Daniels.
Dowagiac needed only to get three outs in the bottom of the 13th inning to break the hex Lakeshore has had on the Chieftains for over a decade now.
Stacey Jones led off with a single and was advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt.
With a runner in scoring position it was up to senior hurler Brittney Reist to bear down and stem the Lakeshore rally.
Reist struck out Jesse Davis for the second out and then set her sights on Ashley Brown.
With a 2-1 count on the batter, Reist fired a pitch past Brown which everyone thought was the third strike. However, the previous pitch was called a ball and forced the Chieftains to stop their celebration and regroup.
Brown popped up and Dowagiac's title dreams had been realized.
The victory erased the memory of Dowagiac's previous two losses to Lakeshore in the district championship game.
The Lady Lancers blanked Dowagiac 4-0 last year in St. Joseph and defeated the Chieftains in 23 innings two years ago in Coloma.
Much like it did the previous Saturday in a showdown with highly ranked Brandywine, Dowagiac had to get great pitching from Reist and some outstanding defensive plays from the rest of the squad.
The biggest of those plays came in the eighth inning with the bases loaded when junior outfielder Kim Luthringer came racing in to snag a fly ball, skidding on the grass, and getting up to throw out Lakeshore's courtesy runner at home plate.
Senior catcher Mandy Parish snared the one-hop throw and applied the tag to keep the game deadlocked at 3-3.
Lakeshore opened the scoring with three runs in the bottom of the third inning.
Brown scored on an error and Monica Gaithright scored on a ground ball by Lakeshore catch Jaci Sandberg.
Dowagiac roared right back and took a 3-2 lead in the top of the fourth inning.
Parish drove in the first run with a single to right field which plated Luthringer, who reached over Sandberg after a collision at home plate.
Parish and Lindsay Tyler scored on a single by Lowe and a Lakeshore error on a ground ball by Willis.
Lakeshore knotted the score at 3-3 with a run in the bottom of the fifth.
Reist (15-2) scattered 10 hits and struck out five.
Reist, Lowe and Daniels all had two hits. Dowagiac finished with 10 hits against Lauren Castonguay, who took the loss for Lakeshore.
Dowagiac will face Gull Lake (22-17) in the first game of the Comstock regional on Saturday.
Championship game
Dow. 000 300 000 000 1 - 4 10 2
Lake. 002 010 000 000 0 - 3 11 3
Brittany Reist (W, 15-2); Lauren Castonguay (L)
2B: Monica Gathright (L), Sandberg (L)
Varsity records: Lakeshore 31-7, Dowagiac 32-4
Semifinal 2
Dowagiac 101 020 0 - 4 9 1
Edwardsburg 000 000 0 - 0 5 0
Willis (W, 13-2); Jenna Bowman (L)
2B: Brittney Reist 2 (D), Kim Luthringer (L), Willis (L)
3B: Mandy Parish (D)