By 2:30 a.

Friday, June 02, 2000

By 2:30 a.m. Thursday, Melissa Ehret was awake.

But her conscious state wasn’t a result of her eager anticipation to pitch her Lyle/Pacelli softball team out of treacherous elimination waters.

Instead, Ehret sandbagged alongside her family members through the night and until 10:30 a.m., fighting the rising Dobbins Creek waters that threatened her home.

All the while, Ehret simply assumed Thursday’s slate of Section 1A playoff action would be washed out.

But after two hours of post-sandbagging sleep, Ehret awoke to find the games were on.

By game time, Ehret was on too.

She allowed four hits and a single run in two games – a 3-1 win over Dover-Eyota, and a 1-0 victory over Houston – forcing a second all-or-nothing game with Houston at 2 p.m. today.

The winner advances to state.

The loser might need sandbags to stop the tears.

Of her pitch-for-pitch duel with Houston’s Michelle Knutson, who had a perfect game through five innings, Ehret said, "For me, every pitch I threw felt like it could be the game.

"Thank God, the offense came through."

On the day, Lyle/Pacelli’s offense was as efficient as possible.

Any less offense could have meant a sleepless night pondering "what could have beens." Any more and L/P would have spared its loyal following the high drama that soaked Todd Park – which compared to everything else in all-wet Austin was a welcome mirage.

L/P’s Amy Bickler led the offense in the opener, helping the team overcome a two-error slow start that left L/P trailing Dover-Eyota, 1-0.

Bickler had three hits and scored all three L/P runs in the game. Her first-pitch triple in the third inning was the best-hit L/P ball all day. She scored on a groundout two pitches later, giving L/P the lead for good.

"She got all of that ball," said Coach Tom Clements, who, before the at-bat, discussed with Bickler Emily Eichman’s penchant for throwing first-pitch fastballs right down the tube.

In Game Two, Bickler and Co. cooled against Houston’s Knutson, who threw what can best be described as a mercury ball, because of its dense and darting characteristics.

But Ehret kept her club in it until the seventh inning, when L/P got the only hits it needed.

With one down, Buffy Judd ripped a first-pitch single to left, breaking up Knutson’s bid for a no-hitter.

"Her ball doesn’t move much," Judd said. "It’s down the middle. She throws hard, but it’s nothing we can’t hit."

Pinch runner Louise Mudra replaced Judd and moved to second on a ground out.

Tammy May came to the plate after having flied to deep left in her previous at bat.

She watched one strike, then another.

"Coach said the first pitch was going to be a strike," May said, "but I felt I needed to look at it. I wasn’t confident. I needed to look at a pitch or two."

On the fifth pitch of the at-bat, May lofted the ball into the air blowing in from right field, where Houston’s Angela Narloch charged in, in, and in some more. But she never closed enough on the ball and barely brushed it with her glove as it finally settled in short right field.

By that time, Mudra was streaking around third and scoring without a throw.

"I was gone on the crack of the bat," said Mudra, who crossed home and ran into the arms of Clements.

Moments later, Clements was telling his ballplayers there was no stopping them now.

Not even an entire night of sandbagging by their ace can slow Lyle/Pacelli.