Turkey Valley didn’t try and steal a base Thursday night against top-rated BCLUW until the seventh inning, when Megan Lukes headed toward second. The move may have caught the Comets off guard, and it ended with Lukes scoring the winning run, advancing the Trojan girls to the state tournament this week with a 3-2 win.
    Lukes slid into second, saw the throw from the catcher go into centerfield and  hesitated only a moment, getting up and legging in toward third. The ball was also overthrown on that play, allowing Lukes to score, break the 2-2 tie and get mobbed by her teammates.
    “I never expected to happen what happened,” said coach Randy Novotny. “I figured with two strikes and two outs it was the ideal time to try and surprise them. We did take them totally by surprise since they made a total of five mental errors on the play.”
    As was the case in three of the four tournament games, the TV girls found themselves behind in the early innings, due in part to two errors. They gave up two runs in the third and BCLUW had runners on second and third with one out before Meagan Novotny struck out the final two batters.
    “We were sure playing ugly at that time. We had talked about the only team that could beat us was us, and we were doing a good job of beating ourselves at that point.”
    In the bottom of the third Novotny was safe on an error. Karen Bouska was also safe on an error, but was caught trying for second on the overthrow. Running for Novotny, Dayna Rosenbaum made it to third on the play and scored moments later on a Haley Kriener double.
    With one away in the fourth, Kristin Milbrandt drilled a double, took third on a passed ball and scored on a sacrifice bunt by Lukes to tie the score.
    “Our philosophy was to get three good cuts in at every at-bat and that philosophy resulted in the two doubles that produced the two runs to tie the score.  Most of our hits recently have been for extra bases and extra base hits usually produce some runs."
    Since the two-run third, Novotny had settled in and retired 11 in a row; for the game she had 11 K’s. She was working on a no-hitter until one single in the seventh. Haley Kriener made all three outs in that inning. After making the first out on a pop-up, she took a bunt and fired to second to catch the lead runner, then made the final out on a throw to first.
    “Like any sport you want the ball in the hands of your best players at crunch time,” noted the coach.  “Haley is our best defensive player, we have her playing third for times like these and as usual Haley made the plays."
    With one out in the bottom of the seventh Lukes delivered a swinging bunt that traveled about 20 feet down the third base line and she just beat the throw, leading to the winning run.
    BCLUW ended with four errors on the night, the Trojans had three.
    The Trojans enter the state with a 37-3 record, and will play Solon in their first contest at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in Fort Dodge. Two years ago the Trojans lost to Solon in the semi-final round at state 1-0. Solon is the defending 2A State Champion.
    “I expect Solon to be a better team than BCLUW,” Novotny predicted.  “Solon has quite a few losses this season, but they play very good competition and they are a mentally tough team.  I think we are a much more mentally tough team than we were two years ago when we played them and lost.” 
    The coach also pointed to Solon’s six players lost to graduation, including two that went on to play at the Division 1 level.  “They had a total of seven players off the team we played two years ago that are playing college softball.  They have one of the premier softball programs in the state and we will have to play our best in order to beat them."