Team (Record) / Inning	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	R	H	E
LAKE CENTRAL (24-6)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	1
LOWELL (20-10)	0	0	0	1	1	0	-	2	5	1

HIGHLAND (5-25-2009) After a regular season where the pitching excellence didn't translate into the corresponding number of wins and losses, Lowell found sunshine on a cloudy day Tuesday, playing an almost perfect playoff game to eliminate long-time rival Lake Central 2-0, in the Highland Sectional semifinals.

After an 18-10 season where Lowell pitchers allowed just 38 runs in 28 games, junior left-hander Lauren Wells didn't allow an LC runner past second base, scored the go-ahead run after the first of her two hits and drove in the clinching run with the second.  The Red Devils won for the fifth time in row and advanced to the sectional championship game Thursday against Highland, a 5-0 winner over arch-rival Munster in the other sectional semifinal Tuesday afternoon.

But it was more than that.  It was a victory over Lake Central, the dominant Northwest Indiana softball school of the last two decades.  The standing room only crowd at the little Highland softball stadium and the mild but notable celebration after the final out indicated the triumph meant more than just advancing one notch.

"It means we have to play on Thursday," said longtime Lowell coach Pete Iussig.  "It feels good.  Anytime you can beat a class organization like Lake Central, it's got to make you feel good.  It's an amazing feeling."

"I felt really good," said Wells, who has been semi-dominant all season.  "I felt invincible today.  When they stepped in the batters box I just felt like, 'Nobody's going to get anything.'"

No one on Lake Central did.  The Indians have faced some of the state's premier hurlers, including Avon senior Jenny Ezparza, probably the top pitcher in Indiana.  But they had no answer for Lowell's hard-throwing left-hander.  Four singles, just three to the outfield and a two-out walk in the seventh inning were al LC, the co-champions of the big school Duneland Athletic Conference, would get.  The Devils made just one error and Wells erased that one with a two-on, two-out strikeout of LC's Nicole Szczerbowski.

Lowell went into the trick bag to break a scoreless tie under dark cloudy skies in the bottom of the fourth inning.  Wells began the inning with a line drive single to left field and Nina Iaokimidis bunted her to second base.  Katherine Allert hit a first-pitch single to left, advancing Wells to third.

Then Iussig pulled a surprise.  Up stepped junior Megan Bolanowski, who had hit fly balls or hard line drives to the outfield in her first four post-season at-bats.  In her fifth time up, Bolanowski laid down a bunt.  It rolled up the first base line, tumbled onto the line for a instant and them wiggled back into fair territory and stopped, an RBI bunt single.

Why bunt with Bolanowski?  Not only is she a serial fly ball hitter, she's Lowell's single season home run record holder (nine in 2008).  Iussig pretended not to see the unorthodox nature of his strategy.

"I wanted to score the run," he said in amazement at the question.  "That was the perfect suicide squeeze.  I wanted to get the run in."

Bolanowski said she had some bunt history.

"At the beginning of the year, to lead off the season, I did it a few times," Megan said on her way to the bus.  "I was hoping he'd call it because, I was thinking, 'Come on. This is a perfect opportunity. They're not even expecting it.'"

"But we have a signal for when we do that.  And I didn't give the signal.  Lauren didn't know I was bunting.  But it ended up OK."

That run gave Lowell the edge against tall LC right-hander Jessica Dobson (16-5), who allowed five hits and a walk in six innings in her final high school game.

Lowell is a team made up almost exclusively of juniors (only Allert is a senior) and LC is senior-dominated.  There's an experience advantage on one side, but there's that career-ending scenario in the other dugout.

"You can't not be nervous," said Bolanowski, one of 13 Lowell juniors on the playoff roster.  "But we were so excited to play this game that we overcame the nervousness and the excitement of it all.  It was good."

When you look at the path the Devils face to reach the state finals, there is no one with the stature of Lake Central blocking their path.  That's how big this game was.

"I scouted them against LaPorte," said Iussig of Lake Central.  "And LaPorte has a very good pitcher.  But they (LC) hit the ball.  They tattooed the ball and LaPorte made a lot of plays. I told one of our coaches, "I don't know if we have enough to stop them."

Now, the question may be, 'Who's going to score enough against Lowell to stop them?'

"But our girls weren't nervous.  I think I was more nervous than they were," admitted Iussig.  "The older I get and the more I do this the more nervous I get.  I don't know if I understand that.  We haven't achieved what we want to yet.  But this is very exciting.  It's a huge step."

SECTIONAL NOTES:  Lowell pitching earned 12 shutouts in 30 games this season and no one has scored more than four runs off the Devils in any game this season.

Lowell coach Pete Iussig suggested that it's one thing to win a sectional with Lake Central in the field.  It's another to beat LC and then win the sectional.

"We've won three sectionals," said Iussig.  "And two of the three were where Munster beat Lake Central and we had to beat Munster.  The first time we won a sectional, we beat Lake Central when they were No. 1 in the state.  The next two times we beat Munster.  In the last two, we lost to Merrillville in the regional and then we lost to Portage in the regional.  Both times Merrillville and Portage went on to win the state championship."

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Revised: May 30, 2009.