Ramblers keep cinderella run going with 10th straight victory and regional title

Warren and Loyola did not match up on the softball diamond this season prior to Friday night.

But that doesn’t mean the moment wasn’t familiar to Ramblers coach Leah Herlocker and her seniors, especially, Emilia Bartholomew and Gwen Coleman, who were part of the 2022 team that lost to the Blue Devils 2-1 in an extra-inning sectional thriller.

“That was a heartbreaker, enough that we all remember that,” Herlocker said of the ’22 playoff matchup. “We have three senior captains this year that have just given everything to this program. For them to come to this place after those four years of hard work, get this kind of redemption moment and get back to regionals and win it is really special.”

Ramblers ace Hunter Lewis struck out 16 batters for the second straight regional game, and allowed just one hit to lead Loyola, seeded 11th in the sectional, to the 6-2 regional-championship victory against No. 2 Warren on May 30 at Duke Childs Field in Winnetka.

Lewis also tripled and knocked in three runs, while Chloe Takacs recorded a two-run single in the first inning and Emilia Bartholomew a run-scoring knock in the fourth.

The victory was Loyola’s 10th in a row as they move on to play No. 6 Hersey at 4 p.m. Wednesday, June 4, at Stevenson. It is just the Ramblers second regional championship since 2012, the last coming in 2022 prior to the Ramblers’ sectional loss to Warren.

“For me it means a lot,” Bartholomew said of the regional title. “I think we’re on an upward trajectory so it’s a great feeling in my senior to keep this going.”

Lewis saved her best for last in the circle — a very bad experience for opposing hitters.

The hard-throwing right-hander struck out the final seven batters she faced. Lewis’ dominant stretch came after the Blue Devils kept their hopes alive with two runs in fifth inning — coming on a hit by pitch, a walk, two wild pitches and Warren’s only hit of the game (a two-run single from Cassie Gabbianelli).

Lewis said the series caused her to hit reset.

“After that one inning, I came into the dugout said, ‘Coach I wasn’t locked in; I gotta reset,'” Lewis said. “I knew it was further in the (game) and they’d be (on) me more so I just had to lock in and really nail the zone and make my pitches move and do what they do.”

Whatever she did worked and kept Warren far away from a comeback bid.

Loyola put Warren in a hole early. Moira Divane and Lewis reached on a hit by pitch and walk, respectively, in the first inning, and after a Blue Devils’ misplay on the infield, Takacs knocked them both in with a two-out single.

Lewis held the No. 2 Blue Devils hitless over the first four innings, and then helped her team add on three more runs in the fourth.

Lewis’ triple to the opposite field drove in Abby Murphy and Maggie Herbert, both of whom had singled. Bartholomew then blistered another single to drive home Lewis and give Loyola a five-run cushion.

One more Rambler came across in the sixth when Lewis’ single to the left-field wall drove in Coleman.

The up-and-down lineup production is just one of many positive developments for the surging Ramblers. Once 5-15 on the season, Loyola is now .500 with two upset wins this postseason.

Some of those losses came while Lewis was injured and out of the lineup, and others came during a rugged early schedule, but Herlocker said things turned around for Loyola when the team’s mindset did.

Special shoutouts to the rubber chickens.

“We kind of shifted the mentality,” she said. “We let them play their game a little more. …They are a loose team. They’re goofy. They are really close friends and you can tell that. So we prompted them to recognize each other. We started to do this pretty goofy thing where we’d give them little rubber chickens (postgame). … I would give one and then they had to give them to each other.

“So they started really looking at the rest of the team and realizing how much everyone was contributing and feeling that cohesion and playing for each other a little more.”

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