Prescott catcher Leah French smacked a two-RBI single in the bottom of the fourth inning.
The hit was the difference in Prescott's 3-1 win against Laconia in the WIAA Division 3 State Championship on Saturday afternoon at Goodman Diamond in Madison.
French was the third batter the Spartans (21-9) faced after a 1:15 rain delay. Pitchers Addison Maurer and Lily Schultz combined to throw nine straight balls after the long break, which loaded the bases for French.
Althought the hit came off of Schultz, both runs were credited to the stat line for Maurer.
After that hit, Schultz settled in and pitched an excellent final two innings for the Spartans, which included three strikeouts. Schultz, who is a freshman, said she thinks the experience is valuable and hopes to use it for her career.
"It helps me going forward knowing that I can be in hard situations and that my team will show up for me and have my back," Schultz said. "I love this program. I am so pumped, I want to make it back here for gold."
Ritzema said he is excited for the prospects of the future of the program despite losing three senior starters because of the young players in the program like Schultz getting the taste of success at the state tournament.
"At Laconia softball, we have a special future coming up, let me tell you," Ritzema said. "Lily's strong in the circle.
"To ask a freshman to come in there and then the way she performed and the way she conducted herself, we were still in that game."
Laconia struggled to figure out the rise-ball pitching from Prescott's Ella Stewart, for the Spartans had just three hits and flew or popped out 13 times.
Ritzema said it just wasn't his team's day at the plate.
"We were just a little bit underneath and we popped a lot of them up that normally we're hitting solid," Ritzema said. "That's the way the game goes sometimes and you just try to make the adjustments the best you can."
Maurer had the lone RBI for Laconia, a single to center field that drove in Cambree Johnson in the third inning.
Laconia had a chance for further damage in the third as well as in the first, but left two runners on base both times.
Prescott (21-9) got on the board in the second inning when Grace Ptacek hit a single to left field. The Cardinals struggled to get solid contact against Maurer up until the rain delay.
Ritzema said he will reflect positively about this year's team.
"I've been doing this over a couple decades and this was just a special team," Ritzema said. "These kids, what they did, the games that they played, the fight that they had, I can't be more proud of these kids.
"Second in the state; I'm so proud of these kids, my coaching staff, the school district."
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