Maize South, ace pitcher beat Kansas’ most historic program for third straight year
Early in the week, Maize South coach Mike Tinich gave senior pitcher Ashlie Thissen a choice.
Preparing for one of the most high-profile triangulars in the Wichita area against Maize and Bishop Carroll on Thursday, he told Thissen to “sleep on it” about which game she wanted to pitch.
Facing Maize would mean a rematch of last year’s Class 5A regional championship game in which Thissen pushed the Mavericks to a 12-4 road upset. A go at Carroll could give her a shot at history, becoming one of the only pitchers in Kansas high school softball history to beat the Golden Eagles three times in a career.
“Can I answer now?” Thissen told Tinich. “I knew right away. I wanted Carroll.”
Thissen took the mound against Carroll on Thursday night, threw six scoreless innings and handed the Eagles a 9-4 loss, their first of the 2019 season. Thissen said she wanted that third win, “bad.”
“It’s the stigma behind them going undefeated,” Thissen said. “You want that one loss that they have.”
Over the past three seasons, Carroll has lost only six times. Thissen has been the opposing pitcher and Maize South the opposing team for half. She was locked in from the start.
In the bottom of the third with runners on second and third and one out, Thissen got Carroll’s Gabby Eck to line out to fellow senior Alyssa Kerr. She made a diving snag at third that kept at least a run off the board in a 3-0 game.
Carroll’s three-time All-Metro selection Kaylin Watkins stepped to the plate next. Thissen earned a harmless groundout to end the inning and Carroll last real shot. In the top of the fourth, Maize South scored four runs and put the win on ice. Even in the bottom of the sixth when Carroll scored four runs, all came on fielding errors. No balls flew past the infield.
“We feed off each other,” Kerr said. “When someone makes a good play or gets a big hit, the next person is there to do the same thing. We just have to keep a positive mindset, and I think that really helped us tonight.”
Maize South was nails at the plate, too.
Freshman Emma Edwards got the scoring started in the top of the first with an RBI double down the left-field line. She followed it up two innings later with a two-RBI double. A few batters later, senior Lauren Johnson launched a missile to center that was ruled a ground-rule double.
Thissen capped the four-run fourth with a double of her own to the same spot. Normally calm, she let out a yell and a clap. The run was on.
“I thought it was going to be a close game,” she said. “Getting that hit put us up by quite a bit, and it’s a good feeling as a pitcher to know you have those comfort runs. I was just pumped to know we can come out and put up big numbers against a team like Carroll.”
Johnson said Thissen is just a gamer. She craves the biggest moments and attacks them. The Mavericks feed off that energy, and that is why they made history Thursday night, she said.
“She knew that she had shut down Carroll two years in a row, and you could see it on the mound,” she said. “It’s kind of just a mindset. We have to go into every game we play them knowing that we were the better team and that even though they were undefeated, that we could get the job done.
“We’re kind of tired of getting overlooked and some people even thinking that Carroll could come over and walk all over us tonight. We just wanted to prove to everyone and make a statement.”
Maize South has become a sparkplug in the Wichita area. The Mavericks’ seniors now have three wins over Carroll, two on crosstown rival Maize and a trip to the state tournament, which ended a four-year drought.
They are up to No. 3 in the Class 5A West regional standings and, after two wins in the triangular, have a strong shot at hosting a regional tournament starting May 13.
Tinich said he knew his group would be up for the task Thursday, and with what he called a group “as good as anybody,” he wasn’t surprised with another win over a program with 13 state championships.
“This is a group that has been starting for four years now,” Tinich said. “They have earned their way here. This is a special group all the way down.”