Tayiah Scanlan’s 10th-inning, inside-the-park home run gives Beecher the state championship over Carterville

PEORIA – Tayiah Scanlan knows her role on the Beecher softball team, one she’s played pretty well as a three-year starter.

The senior left fielder, who bats eighth in the lineup, typically finds herself called upon to bunt any time she comes up with runners on base and less than two outs, the exact scenario she found herself in when she stepped to the plate in the 10th inning of the Class 2A state championship against defending champ Carterville.

With nobody out and runners on first and second in a 2-all game, Scanlan took a pair of strikes as she looked for the pitch to put on the infield turf. With two strikes, she had to adjust and was ready to swing away.

And it couldn’t have worked out any better.

Scanlan took a 1-2 offering from Lions reliever Taryn Ford and flipped it the other way to left field for what initially looked like a go-ahead RBI single. But after Carterville left fielder Kendall Henrikesen slipped on the rain-soaked artificial turf, not only did Alexa Gliva score from second, but Abrianne Papas scored from first before Scanlan dove into home plate for a go-ahead, inside-the-park home run to give the Bobcats a 5-2 lead.

Taylor Norkus shut down the Lions (29-5) in the bottom of the inning to secure the 5-2 score that gave the Bobcats (39-2) their fifth state championship in program history at the Louisville Slugger Complex in Peoria.

“If anything, I thought I’d be bunting that at-bat,” Scanlan said. “I’ve been a bunter all through high school, but [head coach Kevin Hayhurst] lets me swing when he knows I need it. I felt he had confidence in me in that at-bat and that made me have confidence in myself. If you would have told me this yesterday, I would have told you you were crazy.”

What was crazy was the way the game turned out. The Lions struck first when pitcher Caidence Phillips helped her own cause with an RBI single in the bottom of the first, a lead that doubled Lainey Workman’s fourth-inning RBI single and a lead that Carterville was looking primed to hold on to from wire to wire.

But after coming up just short of a homer in the third inning, Bobcats pitcher Ava Lorenzatti sent one into orbit for a game-tying moonshot.

While there were still plenty of nerves in the dugout, once they were able to even the score, Lorenzatti and her teammates knew all they needed to do was keep the game alive and they’d find a way to eventually win.

“It really loosened up the game for everyone,” Lorenzatti said. “A tie game is still intense, it just gave us more of a positive outlook.”

A game that was moved up 15 minutes due to rain that still came before first pitch, the weather remained a factor throughout. In addition to perhaps leading to Henrikesen’s slip in the 10th, multiple baserunners slipped rounding first base and the slick grip on the ball consistently impaired Lorenzatti’s ability to keep full command of her riseball.

That’s why she suggested to Hayhurst that Norkus enter the circle before the bottom of the sixth.

“The riseball, she had to really grind it out for five innings because the ball movement wasn’t what we’re used to seeing,” Hayhurst said. “It was nice for her to say that this might be a good time to switch. She’s an unbelievable player, so for her to be a teammate like that, that’s what’s cool. You see her hit the ball, she’ll go out there and do whatever … that just tells you something about what kind of player she is."

The Bobcats loaded the bases with nobody out in the ninth before Ford got a fielder’s choice, a popout and a flyout to preserve the tie. But after Norkus escaped the bottom of the inning after Savannah Gibbs’ leadoff single, they pounced.

Gliva walked and Papas reached on an error on her bunt attempt, setting the stage for Scanlan. In a prior at-bat, Hayhurst told Scanlan during a timeout that with the Lions playing a shallow outfield to go for broke. And with the game on the line in the 10th, that’s what she did.

“Earlier she came up and I told her, ‘I don’t care where the pitch is, just swing as hard as you can and maybe hit one to the gap,’ ” Hayhurst said. “Then at the end it came up again, but she had two strikes and was protecting the plate. She was just determined, and she played really well.”

With three NCAA Division I recruits in Lorenzatti (Florida State), Norkus (Colgate) and center fielder Makenzie Johnson (Northern Kentucky) and an all-state double play duo of shortstop Ava Olson and second baseman Elena Kvasnicka, Scanlan – no slouch herself as a Rockford University commit – might not command as much attention as some of her teammates.

But, like every player on the roster, Hayhurst said Scanlan plays her role just as well as anyone.

“We’ve got 17 players on the roster, some need to come in to pinch run, pinch hit or play defense,” Hayhurst said. “We’ve got some different roles for different kids and Tayiah stepped up as a senior here at the end of the year. She’ll always remember this last game.”

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Beecher's Taylor Norkus lifts her arms in triumph as Ava Olson drops to her knees after Norkus recorded the final out of the Bobcats' 5-2 10-inning win over Carterville in the Class 2A State championship game at Peoria's Louisville Slugger Complex Saturday, June 7, 2025. (Mason Schweizer)

Scanlan was one of four Bobcats to have two-hit days, joined by Olson, Lorenzatti and Liliana Irwin. Lorenzatti and Norkus each threw five innings, with Lorenzatti allowing two earned runs on five hits, a walk and five strikeouts and Norkus allowing a hit and striking out nine.

Hayhurst has been the head coach for all five of Beecher’s softball titles since taking the job ahead of the 2003 season. After a second-place finish two years ago and supersectional loss last year, the 2025 team that kept most of that runner-up core has been vocal all season long about giving Hayhurst a ring for the thumb being the only acceptable outcome to the season.

And that’s what they got.

“I get to carry on that legacy with me,” Olson said.