Independence has spent the season studying and preparing for its test.
Now it’ll see how far its come.
After playing a regular season schedule that features six of the other 11 teams in the state tournament, the Lady Patriots will see how far they’ve come when they open the Class AA state tournament on Tuesday morning.
The path to a title isn’t an easy one though.
Indy is familiar with two of the foes in the Class AA field – Sissonville and Herbert Hoover – but both will be put on the backburner to start.
The Lady Patriots have a 9:45 a.m. date Tuesday with the unknown of the AA field – Oak Glen.
What is known of the Golden Bears is they pack a punch, coming into the state tournament with a 28-1 record. Their lone loss came against Keyser in Game 1 of the Region 1 championship, but they followed it up with two wins to clinch a state tournament berth.
“I talked to the Keyser coach and he told me a little bit about them,” Indy head coach Ken Adkins said. “He said they have two pitchers but their right hander is probably the better of the two. He said she pitches at around 57 miles per hour and the lefty they have is pitching at around 54. Keyser said their issue was they struck out 42 times in three games.
“From what I can see they hit the ball well. They’ll do whatever they have to do to win and that includes play some small ball. Because of where they play it’s hard to get a read on them. From what I understand though they’re pretty solid. Heck, they’re 28-1 for a reason.”
The right-handed pitcher Adkins noted is junior Maddie McKay and her numbers are as good as promised.
Through 26 games she had compiled an 18-0 record in the circle to go along with 203 strikeouts. She wasn’t too shabby at the plate either.
She was second on the team with a .522 batting average, crushing six home runs and driving in 33 runs.
“She’s certainly a strong player for us,” Oak Glen head coach Sherrie Garner said. “She brings a lot of leadership and ability and we look to her for leadership at the plate and the field. She’s certainly our No. 1 pitcher and she’s held her own for sure. She works very hard at what she does and continues to get better every game.”
Leading the team in batting average is sophomore catcher Sarah Brown at a .540 clip. She has 13 doubles and two home runs to go along with 34 RBIs. Rounding out the Golden Bears’ stable of .400 hitters is another pair of sophomores in Sydney Brown and Olivia Munoz.
“We have the ability to play small ball and hit with power,” Garner said. “We do have some hitters, combined we probably have over 12 home runs, but we do generate a lot of runs. We look to our four, five and six hitters to clear the bases as well. The bottom of the lineup has the ability to hit and play some small ball. I don’t hesitate to call upon any one of them to play some small ball to generate some offense. Games are won by one run, not 10.”
Still, Independence isn’t without its own stable of players.
Sophomore pitcher Delaney Buckland has been stellar for Indy, leading the state with 336 strikeouts to go along with 22 wins and a 2.37 ERA.
Leading the way at the plate is her battery mate, first-team all-stater Kaylen Parks.
The senior catcher comes to South Charleston with a .589 batting average to go along with 13 home runs, 57 RBIs, 12 doubles and 38 stolen bases.
In his talks with Keyser, Adkins noted Oak Glen chose to intentionally walk their star Alexa Shoemaker, who has similar numbers to Parks. Wyoming East chose to do the same to Parks In the Region 3 championship and Adkins responded by moving Parks to the leadoff spot..
“We’ll look at maybe doing that again and what everybody else is doing,” Adkins said. “It’s not a secret what we do and most coaches that know me know that I’m going to do whatever it takes to win. If that means moving her up, we might. And that really doesn’t hurt us. We look at the stats from all season, but many times at the end of games the majority of our last at-bats have come from that No. 1 spot.
“In 2019 it was different. We always had the No. 9 hitter up that year so we tried to put somebody in that spot that could hit really well. It’s amazing that it’s different. If we put Kaylen in leadoff it’s probably a good thing to end with her as our last swing of the game. We’ll take that.”
Garner didn’t tip her hand in regards to how they’d approach Parks, but noted they’d play each situation strategically.
“If we’re in a position where we need to play strategic defense, we’ve had that opportunity to do it,” Garner said. “I think I’ve learned things from it and so have our coaches. We’ve learned how to work together to slow down the process when you put some runners on base. If you’re not up with the lead, you have to be careful.”
As far as experience at the state tournament, Independence has an edge, but only slightly.
Parks was the starting second baseman when Indy went in 2019, earning first-team all-state honors that year. Third baseman Sarah Bragg was on the team that year, but didn’t start.
Oak Glen hasn’t been to the state tournament since 2017.
Garner is slightly concerned about nerves, but the entire state tournament experience isn’t new to everyone on staff.
“None of the kids on our current roster have been to states, but we have some kids that were family members and close to those teams because of interest in the sport when we were there in 2016 and 17,” Garner said. “So we were actually able to attend those years. We had a pitcher named Hannah Clunk at the time, a couple of our coaches were there and Maddie’s sister was on the team at the time. So they have been a witness to that. It is a stage like none other, but they have some knowledge of game stress. We’ll take that in and play to the best of our ability.”
Independence and Oak Glen will meet Tuesday at 9:45 a.m. on Rock Field A at Little Creek Park in South Charleston.
Contact Tyler Jackson at tylerjackson@lootpress.com, call him at 304-731-5542 and follow on Twitter @tjack94