Bureau Valley falls to Stillman Valley in regional semifinals

MANLIUS - The Bureau Valley Storm softball team was thrown a curveball in the off-season coming off their 2024 regional championship.

Not only did they lose three starters from last year’s team, they took a hit in the off-season losing two returning all-stater players. Senior ace pitcher Madison Smith transferred to Annawan during the school year while senior shortstop, Lesleigh Maynard suffered a season-ending knee injury in basketball.

The Storm made the best of the hand dealt to them, finishing with a 17-18 record, falling to Stillman Valley 10-0 in the semifinals of the Class 2A Bureau Valley Regional on Wednesday.

“There’s two ways to look at it. I can say woe is me, ‘I lost two all-state players and three starting outfielders.’ So five out of nine players were gone,” BV coach Dave Shepard said. “I don’t want to look at it that way and feel that way. I want to feel like our team won against some really good teams. I guess I can always say, what could have been and what should have been.

“Given those two players back, and with other pieces to the puzzle that we found with three freshmen, yeah, I think it could be different. But I don’t want to take anything away from those players.”

The Cardinals (19-8) broke it open with six runs on three hits and four Storm errors in the fourth to take 9-0 lead.

Addison Adler drew a leadoff walk and both Kendall Knoll and Ellie Larson laid down sacrifice bunts, reaching safely on Storm errors. Another error by the Storm on Liz Henderson’s grounder to third led to two Stillman Valley runs and opened the floodgates.

Mylee Hulstedt followed with a two-run single and pitcher Mackenzie Shere and Aurora Longerhausen added RBI hits to run the Cardinals lead to 9-0.

Knoll and Larson singled to start the Stillman Valley fifth inning and a throwing error by the Storm allowed the Cardinals to score their 10th run to end the game.

Stillman Valley coach Shawn Byers said his team does a good job taking advantage of errors.

“That’s how we coached them,” he said. “They played real well today. No doubt about it. We’re capable of it, but every day you don’t know. You just don’t know.”

The Storm’s best opportunity to score came in the top of the first. Kadyn Haage singled up the middle with two outs and Emily Wright followed with a line drive single to center. Shere struck out Danni Benavidez to end the threat and retired the next nine batters she faced until pitcher Carly Reglin singled to lead off the fifth.

Shere struck out eight in the game while shutting the Storm out on three hits and one walk.

Reglin, who will be pitching for Illinois Central College next year, was tagged for the loss, allowing 12 hits and 10 runs, but just one earned run while fanning five.

“Stillman is very solid, top to bottom. I was hoping we had a shot at them,” Shephard said. “They hit the ball. They did little things well. They took second base when they had opportunities and we didn’t score a run. We had a couple of opportunities, but not as much as we needed.

“We are young. We’re going to graduate two senior starters. They’re going to be hard to replace. Hopefully we’re going to have some good girls coming in and our young girls coming up.”

Huldstedt doubled with two outs and scored on a hit by Shere to give the Cardinals a quick 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first.

Back to back doubles by Knoll and Ellie Larson staked the Cardinals to a 2-0 lead in the second.

Stillman Valley had three straight hits in the third, but did not score as the Storm defense shined. Catcher Emily Wright threw out a runner stealing second and left fielder Sadie Bailey gunned down runner at third.

The No. 2 seeded Cardinals advance to Friday’s regional championship at 4:30 p.m. against the winner of Thursday’s No. 3 Oregon (19-10) vs. No. 5 Erie-Prophetstown (14-9). Stillman Valley has defeated Oregon twice, 2-0 and 6-5.

“It will be a tough one Friday,” Byers said.