Two years ago, Ennis had one of the Dallas area’s top home run-hitting duos, as Riley Fira and Ashley Deutsch combined to hit 22 homers. Last season, Fira tied for the area lead in home runs with 13.
Both of those all-state players are gone now. This season, Ennis has hit only 11 home runs as a team, and no player has more than three homers.
But Ennis (35-5-1) has won 23 of its last 24 games and reached the Class 4A Region II final, where it will play Hallsville in a best-of-3 series that starts Thursday. Ennis has matched the 2012 team for the longest playoff run in program history and needs two wins to reach the state tournament.
Despite the lack of a big power hitter in the middle of the lineup, Ennis has averaged 9.3 runs per game and has a team batting average of .428. Tulsa pledge Julia Hollingsworth is hitting .659 with 87 hits and 77 runs, Texas Tech pledge Michaela Cochran is hitting .555 with 56 runs and 57 RBIs, and Riley Robertson is hitting .463 with 55 RBIs.
“When you have that home run hitter in the middle of the lineup, it is scary,” Ennis coach Rodney McNeill said. “But I think everybody kind of sits back and waits for that big blow to come. Our team, when we’re at our best, we’re putting the ball in the gap and we’re running. We’ve worked a lot on our base running, finding opportunities to be aggressive.”
In 41 games, Ennis has 124 stolen bases in 126 attempts. Hollingsworth has 54 steals in 55 tries, and Cochran has 22 steals in 22 attempts. By comparison, Ennis has allowed only 10 stolen bases all season.
“It does change the way you call the game,” McNeill said. “If you’ve got Julia Hollingsworth on first base and Riley Fira comes up and there’s two outs, you don’t want her to necessarily run. You don’t want to take an at-bat away from [Fira]. Now, we don’t really have that pause to not steal.”
Rockwall pitching gets a boost: Rockwall went the entire regular season without junior Kayla Vandergriff, last season's District 12-5A pitcher of the year.
Yet Rockwall (28-6-1) still earned a share of a district title and has reached the 5A Region II final thanks in large part to the pitching of another ace — Emily Cowan. The junior, who was a first-team all-district selection last year, is 18-5 with a 2.98 ERA going into a best-of-3 series against nationally ranked The Woodlands.
“She’s tough,” Rockwall coach Shadie Acosta said. “Whether someone is hitting her or not, she has great composure. She never shows nerves.”
Vandergriff (3-0, 2.10 ERA) made her first appearance of the season in the second round of the playoffs, then started for the first time in a 4-1 win over McKinney Boyd in Game 3 of a regional quarterfinal series. She and Cowan both had a hand in Rockwall’s regional semifinal victory over Kingwood, last year’s 5A state runner-up. They each got a start in the first two games, then they combined on a seven-hitter in a 9-7 win in Game 3 to put Rockwall in a regional final for the first time since 2005.
Acosta said that using two pitchers hasn’t bothered Cowan.
“She is such a great team player, she really welcomed it,” the Rockwall coach said. “She saw the bigger picture. She said this is going to be great for our team. They complement each other very well because they are two very different pitchers.”
Another tough test for Timberview: In every round of the playoffs, Mansfield Timberview has faced a pitcher who will play college softball. That will continue in the 5A Region I final against Lubbock Coronado and all-state pitcher Monique Garcia, a North Texas signee.
In last week’s regional semifinal, Garcia held Flower Mound, then the state’s No. 1-ranked 5A team, to three runs in three games. But Timberview, which is averaging 6.6 runs per game in the playoffs, has wins over LSU pledge Maribeth Gorsuch of defending 5A state champion Lewisville and all-state pitcher Haley Freyman of Richland the last two weeks to reach its first regional final.
Mariah Denson (.467, 44 RBIs) has a 21-game hitting streak, and Maddie Munoz (.408) has a hit in 18 games in a row. Ashley Timmons is hitting .510 with 11 home runs and 49 RBIs.
Timberview (29-6) has one of the state's best pitchers in Denson (25-3, 1.43 ERA). But Timberview hitters don't hit against her on a regular basis in practice.
"I don't typically use our pitchers to pitch our live batting practice," coach Donya Mooney said. "The season is so long. By the time they play their select games and come into our season, then pitch as many games as they're going to pitch, that's just too much. You run the risk of injury."
Denson has been battling a left foot injury, which she said is plantar fasciitis.
"I think she's doing OK," Mooney said. "We're keeping her off of her foot as much as possible. We're expecting good things from her this weekend."
Follow Greg Riddle on Twitter at @DMNGregRiddle
