Walk the batter, every time. Have a batter lean over the plate and take one for the team. Three national championships in the last ten years help players believe in his system. But the Dutch had taken advantage of three Panther errors in the top of the seventh to storm back and tie the game at four. And so it was that in the bottom of the ninth, Stephanie Carew came to the plate with one out and a runner on third.
Wares didn t even hesitate.
He walked her intentionally. The problem with this strategy a strategy the Chapman coaches had anticipated long ago, by the way is that the batter following Carew in the lineup this season is Jessamine Maiben. Central walked her, too. A mere freshman. Dawn Lopez, a local Santa Ana girl who grew up playing Bobby Sox ball on the very field this game took place on, came up in one of the first real pressure situations she has faced as a collegian.