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No. 6 WL Northern pulls away from Lakeland to win seventh district title in last decade
COMMERCE TWP. — Like the prep softball version of the Hatfields and McCoys, the rivals from the Battle of Bogie Lake Road, Lakeland and Walled Lake Northern, have ‘gotten’ each other so many times over the years, that’s hard to determine what exactly you might be getting ‘revenge’ for.
So neither coach really wanted to bring up what had happened last year, when Lakeland took out Northern, en route to a quarterfinal appearance.
And even though Lyla Turmell and the No. 6-ranked Knights remembered, they didn’t put a whole lot of stock into it.
The junior pitcher had a home run — her third on the day — and an RBI double, and struck out 10, as the Knights beat Lakeland, 6-3, to claim a Division 1 district title on their home field Saturday, their seventh since the 2015-16 season.
“We kind of put it in the past, and we just said ‘New game.’ We beat them in preseason and in the LVC, and we just tried to not let it affect us really, even though we beat them,” Turmell said. “But we just wanted to come out new game, 0-0.”
The Knights (30-6) — who will advance to regionals at Grand Blanc next weekend, facing Lake Orion — did beat Lakeland (25-11) twice back in mid-April, in a high-scoring doubleheader where the two teams accounted for 41 runs.
“It’s always hard to beat a team, a good team, especially a good team like Lakeland, three times,” Northern coach Kristen Woodard admitted. “But no, I didn’t really want to put that (last year’s loss) in their heads at all. I just knew we’d have to come and bring our best, because I know Lakeland would — they always do.”
In the last decade, the two programs have met in the postseason six of the nine times it was held (no season in 2020), with one team or the other winning a district title every single time. In 2017, they both won a district, and met for the regional title.
“They’re a good team. They force you to do things like that (make mistakes) sometimes. And you know, our team, we played really well. I mean, earlier in the year, they beat us up pretty good,” said Lakeland coach Mike Cleary, noting that his team never talked about those April losses again after they happened. “And to go into this game tied in the (sixth) we were in pretty good shape, I thought. But you know what? You know, we did this to them last year. They do it to us this year. It’s tough when both of us are in the same district, because we always have good teams, and it’s seems one of us has to get (knocked) out early, which is, unfortunately, this year it’s us.”
The Eagles were in good shape early, jumping out to a first-inning lead with a solo home run by Brynn Taliercio. But Turmell answered in the bottom of the inning with a solo shot of her own to tie it up at 1-1.
Turmell’s RBI double to the right-center gap in the fourth put the Knights ahead, and they’d add a second run on an error to lead 3-1.
Both teams would pitch around the other’s No. 3 hitter the rest of the way, and that benefitted the Eagles in the sixth, when an unintentional-intentional walk to Taliercio put the tying run on, and Emily Searle’s two-run double tied it at 3-3.
“We just talked about, you know, what we get behind, and we’ve come back with other teams. We were down big against Hartland in the tournament. We came back and beat them, then other teams, we were down, and we battled back,” Cleary said. “So I said, you know, if they get ahead of us, we’re not out of it. And, you know, we came back, we’re down and came back and tied it up again. So that was kind of the team. They didn’t give up.”
Woodard made a trip to the circle to calm Turmell down during the rally, calming her down, making her laugh.
“Sometimes, I do lighten the mood, but there I just wanted her to get dialed in and just, you know, give her a little extra confidence,” Woodard said. “I just wanted to make sure that she wasdoing all right, because she was getting a little wild there. …And just remind her that they have to hit her best pitch, and just to pitch with that in mind.”
“She told me that, basically, to just throw my game and they have to be scared to hit off of me. And same with hitting too. So they had to throw to me and I had to throw to them,” Turmell said.
Makenna Kresbaugh led off the bottom of the sixth inning with a solo home run to put the Knights back up, 4-3, then after they loaded the bases, tacked on two more runs on back-to-back RBI singles by Olivia Frelick and Kendall Morris to make it 6-3.
It wouldn’t be a Lakeland-Northern matchup without a little controversy, and that came at the end of that inning, when Northern’s ninth hitter to come to the plate was initially called safe, then was called out when the home plate umpire overruled the initial decision.
The was more in the top of the seventh, as the Eagles — down to their final strike — had their own runner called safe on a bang-bang play, but Turmell got the next batter to line out to close it out.
Photo gallery from the D1 softball district final between Lakeland and WL Northern
Walled Lake Northern 8, Walled Lake Central 2
The second semifinal of the morning was another close one initially for the Knights, tied at 2-2 until the bottom of the fifth, when the Knights put a pair of runs on the board, then added four more in the sixth.
Sam Gillick was 4-for-4 with two stolen bases and three runs scored, while Turmell — who struck out 14 in the circle — homered twice and drove in three runs. Makenna Kresbaugh said a pair of doubles and drove in four runs.
Lakeland 17, West Bloomfield 2 (3 innings)
The Eagles made short work of the Lakers in the first semifinal of the morning, as four batters — Piper Huff, Aubrey VanGoethem, Emilee Dostal and Zoie Gagnon — drove in multiple runs. Gagnon homered and drove in three total.
Melina Wing got the win in the circle scattering six hits and striking out four.
