Sometimes the most gratifying victories are those that come with great adversity and sacrifice.
Within 24 hours, the Gainesville softball team experienced hardship twice during last week’s quest for a district championship.
Last Wednesday, the night before the Class 5A-District 5 title game, junior Roxy Walsh broke her wrist at practice and was lost for the season.
Walsh appeared in 21 games this season and was an important part of the GHS defense, with a .984 fielding percentage as both a catcher and a right fielder. She is third on the team with 54 putouts.
On Thursday, during the 2-0 win at Deltona for the program’s second straight district title, senior Madisyn Gillins tore her ACL going into second base in the top of the second inning.
“The next day in practice, it wasn’t really a major injury or anything, but we had a ball ricochet off the fence and hit somebody in the ear,” said GHS coach Chris Chronister, who led the Hurricanes to their first state championship game appearance since 2016 last May. “We had a little bit of a streak of bad luck there, but like I said, ‘next man up,’ you’ve got to keep moving forward. Unfortunately, we’re not going into the rest of the playoffs at full strength.”
Those injuries changed the dynamics of the Hurricanes’ defense.
“We switched our defense around, changed our lineup a little bit, but not a lot,” Chronister said.
Gillins was the team’s leadoff hitter with a team-best .483 batting average, .595 on-base percentage, .783 slugging percentage and 26 runs scored.
“We’ll miss her for sure,” Chronister said. “Her bat in the lineup was huge for us this year. Again, we’re going to have to do what we have to do. Next man up, somebody has got to fill that role.”
She was also the team’s starting shortstop.
“We’re just trying to make it work,” said senior McKenna O’Sullivan, who is the team’s third baseman when she is not in the game pitching. “She’s a very, very big loss. We had to bring our center fielder in to play second base (Lana Ricks moved from second base to shortstop). I got pulled more easily (from the circle) because we kind of have a little bit of a hole with Lily (Overstreet) at third, not saying that she’s not a good player, but she just doesn’t have the experience over there like I do. We’re just trying to piece it together.”
The adversity started at the beginning of the season, when GHS (16-7) learned that sophomore pitcher Leanna Bourdage would miss most, if not all, of the season with an injury.
“Honestly, at the start (of the season) I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to play at all,” Bourdage said. “Just coming into it, I was told a whole lot of different things about ‘you’re not going to be able to play for a while’ so thankfully now I am able to (play), but at the start I didn’t think I was going to be able to.”
That includes both hitting and pitching.
“We started with base running, and then I switched to lefty hitting so I could play,” she said.
In 14 games, Bourdage is hitting .393 in 31 plate appearances despite having to switch to the other side of the plate.
Her presence has given the team a lift. They have been energized by her return.
“She’s an energizer in the dugout,” O’Sullivan said. “Just from a defensive standpoint, we have the utmost confidence in her. There’s never been a doubt in my mind that she’s going to go in a situation like she came into the situation (last night) with two runners in scoring position and no outs, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that she was going to get out of there with no runs. I’m not a pitcher, I just stepped up for my team when I need to, but having Leanna back, that gives me a little bit of relief.”
Bourdage had her back with three straight strikeouts to end the threat. She also had two strikeouts in each of the fifth, sixth and seventh innings.
Likewise, O’Sullivan has her back.
“When McKenna is at third base over there, she’s on fire all the time,” Bourdage said. “I can trust her to get those bunts, trust her to field in front of me, behind me, literally anything that goes to her, she stops it, she gets it, she always has my back.”
In the circle, Bourdage has put up dominant numbers during the playoffs, even though she is still not 100%.
In 13 postseason innings pitched, she has allowed no runs on one hit, facing a total of 41 batters with only two walks and 30 strikeouts.
O’Sullivan is a big reason why the Hurricanes have had so much success throughout the season after an 0-4 start.
She still gets the start in the circle with Bourdage coming in relief.
In last night’s 3-0 win against Belleview in the FHSAA Class 5A-Region 2 Quarterfinals, O’Sullivan started the first three innings and Bourdage finished the last four innings with no runs or hits allowed and only two walks with nine strikeouts. They combined on a two-hitter.
“I prefer to come in in relief personally because McKenna did a great job there getting us ahead, and then coming into relief. I feel more of the adrenaline kick in, things like that, and it just keeps me going,” Bourdage said.
Despite the setbacks, Bourdage and the team are highly confident.
“We’re going to state,” Bourdage said. “No question.”
O’Sullivan agrees.
“We are fighters,” she said. “We have been facing adversity. Things never go our way. We had to fight through that in the offseason, during the season, we’re just going to keep going…we’re going to go back (to the final four). We’re just very, very determined.”
They finally got a little bit of good luck on their side on Thursday night when No. 2 seed Deltona was upset by No. 7 seed Springstead (Spring Hill), 1-0, in nine innings in the regional quarterfinals.
That set up at home regional semifinal game for GHS at 7 p.m. on Tuesday against the lower-seeded Eagles (15-8). The winner will advance to the regional final with a chance to return to the final four.
“We just want to go out with a bang,” O’Sullivan said. “We had unfinished business last year, and we just want to go back. That was an experience that I think a lot of us will never forget, and I think that experience is what is going to push us to want to go back, to make sure we go back.”