Showing the form that has made her the dominant pitcher in the Cahokia Conference for the past two years, Washington was almost flawless while freshman Courtney Belcher broke open a scoreless game with a two-run double in the fourth inning as the Greyhounds earned a berth in the Class 1A State Tournament with a 4-1 victory.
Virginia (29-5), which entered the contest batting over .340 as a team, made contact against Washington, who struck out just three. But helped out by a great defensive play from shortstop Kendyll Koester early in the game, Washington was in complete command the whole way.
"I was a little less nervous because we had been here before," Washington said. "The defense made all the plays behind me, and we're going to back to state. It feels good."
Lebanon (25-8) advances to the Class 1A State Tournament semifinals on Friday at East Side Centre in East Peoria, where it will take on Cobden at noon. The Appleknockers (29-8) defeated (Albion) Edwards County 3-2 at the Carterville Super-Sectional on Wednesday.
The win also brought a smile from Greyhounds coach Hank Feldt, who watched as his team squandered a pair of early scoring chances before getting four runs in the bottom of the fourth.
"It went pretty much as I expected. I thought there would be one wild inning and there was," Feldt said. "The first couple innings we had chances but we popped the ball up.
"I just told the girls that they had to put the ball on the ground, they had to put the ball in play and make them handle it. You have to give them the chance to make mistakes. That's what it's all about."
The Greyhounds threatened in two of the first three innings against Lady Redbirds starter Taylor Jokisch. Entering the game with a 19-0 record, Virginia's freshman ace forced Lebanon to strand four runners in the first three innings, including three in scoring position.
In the Greyhounds' fourth, the Lady Redbirds finally blinked.
Olivia Cornell and Melissa Nunn led off with back-to-back singles to put runners on first and second. Koester, who had prevented Virginia from scoring one inning earlier with a great diving catch at shortstop, then bunted up the third-base line.
Jokisch fielded the ball but threw late to third attempting to get Cornell, and the bases were loaded with nobody out.
Belcher then followed with a line-drive single up the middle to score Cornell and Nunn. Virginia catcher Taylor Jacobs then threw wildly past third base trying to get Koester, who scored and was followed by Belcher, who circled the bases for a 4-0 Lebanon lead.
"You can't throw the ball around like we did in the one inning and expect to beat a quality team like Lebanon," Virginia coach Ty Gebhardt said. "We knew she (Washington) was a quality pitcher, but I thought we made good contact all day against her. They (Lebanon) made the plays, and we didn't."
Virginia got on the scoreboard in the sixth inning on an error and RBI groundout by Megan Bergerud, but Washington shut down the Lady Redbirds in the seventh to seal Lebanon's second straight state trip.
Contact reporter Dean Criddle at 239-2665 or dcriddle@bnd.com.
