Cossack softball heads back to State Tournament

VOLGA – The Sioux Valley softball team will be playing in the Class A State Tournament for the second-straight season this weekend in Aberdeen as the Cossacks clinched a spot in the tournament with a walk-off win over Sioux Falls Christian in the SoDak 16 on May 26.

It was the fourth time that the Cossacks and Chargers played this season. Sioux Valley led 5-2 after the first two innings and then SFC tied the game in the top of the fifth. Amelia Jacobson then came to the plate in the bottom of the seventh with two outs and Abby Axtell was on second base. Jacobson would hit a ground ball through the right side of the infield and Axtell came home to secure the victory and punch the Cossacks ticket to the State Tournament.

Sioux Valley head coach Tatum Sonnenburg said her team showed great poise in the SoDak 16.

"Well, it definitely wasn't an easy road," Sonnenburg said. ìThis is the fourth time that we've seen Sioux Falls Christian this year. Every time we play them, it's kind of a little bit closer and a little bit more of a nail biter. This group of girls has a sense of coming together when the team needs it the most, and their determination and not settling really kicked in there at the end. They just did what they knew they could do."

Sioux Valley (21-4) had won 14-straight games until the Cossacks lost to McCook Central/Montrose in the championship of the Big East Tournament. That was the game before the SoDak 16 and Sonnenburg said her team did a good job of not letting that loss carry over into the postseason.

"Just knowing that you have one game to focus all your energy into, I think it motivated them to want to push to do what they could in this [SoDak 16] game. That just has been evident all this year when we get into tough steering games, or we get into tough situations. Instead of hanging their heads about not getting that Big East championship, [we shifted our focus to the SoDak 16]," Sonnenburg said.

Sioux Valley was the No. 5 seed in last year's State Tournament. The Cossacks lost 6-2 to Dell Rapids in the quarterfinals and then fell 10-0 to Vermillion in the consolation semifinals. In the seventh-place game, Sioux Valley lost 9-6 to Elk Point-Jefferson and the Cossacks went winless in their first State Tournament.

The Cossacks lost two players to graduation from last year's team. With so many returners this year, Sonnenburg said her team has always been on the same page in terms of their goals for the season.

"The girls on this team, there's so many of them that play year round, and so their mindsets aren't jumping from one sport to the next, or you know, one goal to the next. Every goal that they come in with, it's a team-driven decision to want to do well, and it's easy when you've played with people for a long time. You can pick up on their bad days or pick up on their good days, and then you can use that to your advantage as well," Sonnenburg said.

This year, the Cossacks will be the No. 6 seed at state. They started the season 6-3 and have won 15 of their last 16 games. Sonnenburg said her team has talked about what they learned from last season's State Tournament, but they know that it all starts with how they play.

"We've definitely already talked about last year," Sonnenburg said. "The newness of the environment, and the anxiety around every game, and the newness of the teams that we saw at State last year, I think was a little bit of a shell shock to us.

"[We know] that every game you have to show up and play your game, and each day might not be your day, but it's more than just the one person that you are. It has to be everybody together and everybody giving as much as they can."

Two of Sioux Valley's returners are their top-two pitchers in Axtell and McKinley Schwab. In the SoDak 16, Axtell pitched the first five innings and gave up five runs, three earned, on eight hits with one strikeout and no walks.

Schwab came for relief and pitched the final two innings. She gave up no runs or hits and had four strikeouts and no walks.

The two have traded off in the circle all year for the Cossacks. Sonnenburg said she thinks both pitchers learned a lot at the State Tournament last season and that their teammates really feed off them when they're delivering to home plate.

"I think some of the newness of the State Tournament and postseason showed in [our pitching] abilities [last year]," Tatum Sonnenburg said. "Now this year, I feel like that has strengthened those two pitchers and they know that they are some of the best pitchers in Class A. Abby, with her being a senior, has such a strength with her leadership and her calmness and demeanor. It just brings us down to earth.

"With McKinley being a freshman, she's a powerhouse. I think that us standing confidently behind her and knowing that she's going to produce what she needs to produce, and she has that resilience to do that, gives us a look at what our future looks like. I think that excites them to want to play to that same degree of energy that she brings."

The Cossacks will take on No. 3 seeded Dakota Valley in the quarterfinals on Thursday at 4 p.m. Top-seeded Madison and No. 8 seeded Elk Point-Jefferson will begin the tournament at 10 a.m. Then No. 4 seeded West Central and No. 5 seeded Beresford will play at 12 p.m. and No. 2 seeded Tri-Valley and No. 7 seeded Lennox will play at 2 p.m.

Two of Sioux Valley's four losses came to Madison and Tri-Valley. The Cossacks lost 5-0 to Madison and 6-2 to Tri-Valley. Sonnenburg said hanging tough with those two teams gives her team confidence that they can play with anybody in the tournament field.

"We were able to hang with those top-seeded teams and that experience has given us a little bit more of that experience of what it's going to be like at State with these teams," Sonnenburg said. "Then when you look at the three through six or seven seeded teams that made it, it's kind of anybody's game.

"We just talked as a team that we have to show up and be our best. We don't need to worry about this pitcher from this team or this batter from that team. It has to start with what we can do best and playing to our advantages and finding those each game."

You can watch every State Tournament game on the South Dakota Public Broadcasting Youtube channel.