SOFTBALL: Glacier's Ali Williams throws second perfect game

The word perfect just doesn’t do it justice.

Ali Williams twirled an unfathomable, overpowering masterpiece — a 20-strikeout, 77-pitch bit of wizardry woefully understated as simply a perfect game — in the first half of Glacier’s sweep of Butte Tuesday afternoon at Kidsports Complex.

The Wolfpack (14-5) beat the Bulldogs 6-0 in the opener, Williams’ second perfect game in 19 days and just the second in school history, before Erin McHugh won a seesaw nightcap 12-9 with a walk-off grand slam, usually the stuff of headlines.

Not today.

Williams continued to one-up herself in a senior season for the ages with the greatest single-game pitching performance in school history, one that was a ground ball away from giving her defense the day off. Williams struck out the first 11 hitters in order before Kenndi Ferriter grounded out to shortstop to end the fourth. She struck out the next nine in order to end the game.

Williams’ dominance was even more staggering deeper inside the numbers:

• Only three Butte hitters managed to reach a two-ball count. There were no three-ball counts.
• Just 14 of her 77 pitches were called balls, so she had six more strikeouts than pitches miss the strike zone.
• The longest at bats were four five-pitch “duels”, all of which ended in strikeouts.
• Williams’ most strenuous inning was the first, when she threw all of 13 pitches.
  
  

After the game, Williams was almost comically humble.

“I think it just felt like kind of a normal day,” she said. “We just had a lot of focus, threw a lot of strikes in there. It was just kind of a normal day.”

Her coach was a bit more awed. Asked if Tuesday’s performance was the best of her career, Andy Fors smirked and then answered, “Uh, yes.”

“Coming into today we don’t get a lot of opportunity to see Eastern (AA conference) schools, and we’ve been paying attention to Butte and they’ve been putting up runs,” he continued.

“They have a pretty strong offense and so we were ready to play some defense. For Ali to come out in that first game and come up with 20 strikeouts and throw her second perfect game of the year, that was unexpected and very, very impressive to watch.”

The Carroll College commit excelled with her rise ball and credited a mild wind with giving that pitch, and her others, a little extra movement.

Fors, his coaching staff, and the Glacier defense mostly just watched in wonder.

“It’s stressful in the dugout,” Fors said. “She’s doing all the work. You just sit on the bucket and hope things go our way.”

The Wolfpack scored all six runs in the second inning, capped by an Anna Schrade grand slam that made the score 6-0.

Williams did not pitch in game two, with McHugh instead getting the start. Butte’s offense took advantage, racing out to a 4-0 lead before the Wolfpack started the slow climb back. Glacier pulled within 4-3 and 6-5, only to see the Bulldogs tack on insurance runs each time.

Butte led 9-5 heading to the bottom of the sixth, but Schrade again came up with a big hit. She doubled to clear the bases with two outs to pull the Pack within 9-8.

Emma Shew, on in relief after McHugh went five innings, pitched a clean top of the seventh to set up the final rally. After Serra Monroe was forced out at the plate for the second out of the inning, McHugh hit the first pitch she saw over the fence in center for the winner. It was McHugh’s second home run of the game and Glacier’s third grand slam in as many games.

“For us to be in a game where we had to answer back inning by inning and put runs up and to have it come down to the seventh inning, to have a walk off grand slam for a win, it’s pretty cool,” Fors said.

McHugh finished 2 for 4 with five RBIs in the second game. Christine Connolly, who caught all 14 innings on Tuesday, went 3 for 4 in the finale with three RBIs and a two-run home run of her own in the fifth inning.

Schrade went 2 for 4 and Christina DuFour was 3 for 3 in the opener.

Glacier’s regular season will come to an end with a crosstown doubleheader against Flathead at Kidsports beginning at 3 p.m. on Thursday.

Butte 000 000 0 — 0 0 0

Glacier 060 000 0 — 6 10 0

Kaidy McClafferty and Brittney Tierney (B). Ali Williams and Christine Connolly (G). W — Williams. L — McClafferty.

BUTTE — Tierney 0-3, Brianna Ossello 0-3, Kenndi Ferriter 0-3, Taylor Huff 0-2, Jenna Walker 0-2, Katelyn Alley 0-2, Jenna Maroney 0-2, Isabelle Bonney 0-2, MacKensie Daily 0-2.

GLACIER — Williams 1-3, Erin McHugh 1-4, Alivia Atlee 1-2, Anna Schrade 2-4, Serra Monroe 0-4, Connolly 1-4, Emma Shew 1-3, Sarah Frandsen 0-1, Sarah Stern 0-1, Christina DuFour 3-3.

2B — Shew. HR — Scrade. RBIs — Schrade 4, Williams, Atlee.

Butte 220 023 0 — 9 7 2

Glacier 001 223 4 — 12 12 4

Kenndi Ferriter and Brittney Tierney (B). Erin McHugh, Emma Shew (6) and Christine Connolly (G). W — Shew. L — Ferriter.

BUTTE — Tierney 1-3, Brianna Ossello 2-5, Ferriter 1-5, Taylor Huff 0-4, Jenna Walker 0-2, Katelyn Alley 0-3, Jenna Maroney 1-2, Isabelle Bonney 2-4, Kaidy McClafferty 0-1, MacKensie Daily 0-2.

GLACIER — Ali Williams 1-3, Christina DuFour 0-5, McHugh 2-4, Alivia Atlee 0-4, Anna Schrade 2-3, Connolly 3-4, Shew 1-2, Serra Monroe 0-0, Sarah Stern 1-3, Meg Hornby 2-3.

2B — Ossello (B); Schrade, Connolly (G). HR — Bonney (B); McHugh 2, Connolly (G). RBIs — Ossello 2, Maroney 2, Bonney 2, Alley (B); McHugh 5, Connolly 3, Schrade 2, Shew (G).