KELSEYVILLE — It might seem like a strange time to hold a father-daughter talk, but Steve and Rebekah Millan did exactly that in the bottom of the sixth inning Tuesday afternoon in Kelseyville with the Swett Warriors clinging to a 6-4 lead and the potential tying runs at second and third with no outs.
Steve Millan, head coach of the Swett softball team, called timeout to talk to daughter Rebekah, Swett’s sophomore pitcher as the Knights appeared to be on their way back from a 5-0 deficit in this first-round North Coast Section Division 4 softball playoff game. The Warriors held on to beat Kelseyville 6-4, but there were a few heart-pounding moments for Millan — both father and daughter — as well as for the rest of the Warriors.
Kelseyville’s first two batters in the sixth, opposing pitcher Jayden Paulich and Cali Schnabl, drew walks before advancing on a passed ball with Ana Ray standing at the plate. Ray jumped ahead in the count 2-0 and the Knights were set up for a big inning.
And that’s when father visited daughter in an attempt to calm her down.
“My blood pressure was through the roof,” Millan said. “I just told her she’s got to settle down and take it one batter at a time. That’s all I told her.”
Rebekah listened. She worked the count full to Ray before striking her out, then jumped ahead of Kelseyville’s No. 9 batter, Ari Fossa, with two quick strikes before retiring her on a popup that Millan gloved herself.
Facing Kelseyville’s leadoff hitter, Kat Wheelan, Millan threw two straight balls before Wheelan popped out to the game’s defensive star, sophomore third baseman Selene Schlepp.
In a playoff contest where both teams struggled in the field — Kelseyvile’s infield early on and Swett’s outfield later in the game — the one constant of defensive precision was Schlepp, who had two putouts on popups that ended up in foul territory and five assists on grounders, including the final out of the game. All of her throws to first base were perfect.
“She’s done a good job for us all season, but she struggled in her last game (a league loss to Hercules),” Millan said. “She made a couple of errors and had tears in her eyes, so it was nice to see her come back like this today.”
While the two teams combined for 10 runs, there were only five hits in the game — three by Swett (15-4), which moves on to play No. 1 seed Cardinal Newman in the semifinals Friday, and two by Kelseyville, which wraps up its season at 8-11.
The Knights certainly could have used another hit in the bottom of the sixth — or even just a couple of productive outs — but ended up getting neither.
“We couldn’t connect,” Kelseyville head coach Julie Jackson said. “We couldn’t make solid contact when we needed it.”
Though disappointed with the outcome, Jackson said the Knights showed a considerable amount of character in coming back from a 5-0 deficit after three innings, all five of those runs unearned.
“They battled back and never gave up,” Jackson said. “They were being hard on themselves (after the game) for a couple of the mistakes they made, but that’s only because they care.”
Both pitchers went the distance in this one. Millan bounced back from her sixth-inning struggles to work a 1-2-3 bottom of the seventh against the heart of Kelseyville’s batting order. She allowed just two hits, both coming in the bottom of the fifth when Bri Davis’ two-out single and an error on the play ended up leading to a run when McIntire followed with a RBI single into left field, which turned out to be the final run of the game as Kelseyville closed to 6-4.
Paulich allowed just three hits — two of them bunt singles — against a Swett team that is all about playing small ball. Everyone on the team bunts the ball as the Warriors put the pressure on opposing defenses to make the plays. Kelseyville struggled early against it, committing four errors in the first three innings, but did a much better job after that.
“That’s our MO,” Millan said. “We have only one travel ball player on the team (his daughter), only four returning players this year, and seven girls who have never played before,” he said. “Against harder throwing pitchers it gives us a chance. That’s our game and all the credit goes to the girls for making it work.”
Whereas Swett pitcher Millan gave the Knights a fair amount of help with seven walks compared to five strikeouts, Paulich didn’t walk a single batter, hit one and struck out six.
“Jayden pitched great,” Jackson said of the junior. “She’s improved so much since I started working with her in the seventh grade. And she wasn’t even 100 percent (slight knee injury).”
Millan had one of the Warriors’ three hits and drove in two runs with a first-inning sacrifice fly — one of the few times in the game a Swett batter was actually turned loose at the plate — and with a RBI double in the fifth to make it a 6-3 game. Millan tried to stretch it into a triple but was thrown out at third base.
Paulich also pitched her way out of a mini-jam in the top of the seventh when Swett had a runner at third base with one out and was looking to scratch out another insurance run. She struck out Schlepp, who couldn’t get a bunt down on two different occasions, before retiring Kailea Barte on a grounder to second base.
“We really wanted that extra run,” Millan said. “She (Paulich) did a nice job there pitching out of it.”
Millan’s sacrifice fly in the first inning made it 1-0. The Warriors picked up two runs in the second on a passed ball and a sacrifice bunt by Mireille Schlepp. They added two more runs in the third on Isabella Reyes’ sacrifice bunt and Addison Gibson’s RBI groundout.
Kelseyville closed to 5-3 with a run in the bottom of the third that scored on a wild pitch and two runs in the fourth, the first scoring on a Swett throwing error and the second on Schnabl’s comebacker to the pitcher.
As much as Kelseyville’s infield struggled early on against Swett’s non-stop bunting game, Swett’s outfield returned the favor by committing three errors, two of them dropped flyballs that led to Knights runs.
Both teams are dominated by underclassmen and looking forward to more success in the future.
“We’ve got a lot of sophomores,” said Millan, a first-year coach.
Kelseyville loses just one player to graduation, senior catcher Fossa, who sang the national anthem a cappella after the starting lineups were announced.
“I’ve had her since the eighth grade,” Jackson said. “I’m really going to miss her.”
Kelseyville won seven more games this season than it did last year and Jackson said the expectations for 2024 will be even higher.
“We’re going to be a force in league,” she said. “We made big-time improvement this year. This is a great group.”
