Photo courtesy of Dana Harris

After coming up just short the past two seasons in the 3A State Softball title game, persistence paid off for the Silver Lake Lady Eagle softball team as they returned to the top of the 3A Softball mountain for the first time since 2018 with a 4-0 win over #1 seed SE of Saline on Saturday at Arrocha Ballpark in Lawrence.

The #3 seed Eagles have now won 14 state championships to go along with 6 state runner-up performances. 

Silver Lake took a 1-0 lead in the top of the 3^rd on Saturday courtesy of 4 walks by SE Saline starting pitcher, Karlee Zurfluh, with the 4^th walk of the inning drawn by Paige Heiman to score Kailyn Hanni for the 1^st run of the game.

Eagle starting pitcher, junior Riley Mohler, was lights out again in the circle, navigating her way thru two jams. The first jam came in the SE Saline half of the 4^th when the Trojans had runners at 1^st and 2^nd with 2 out, but Mohler was able to retire Hannah Thiel on a flyball to center to end the threat.

The biggest scare for Mohler came in the bottom of the 5^th as the Trojans had runners at 2^nd and 3^rd with only 1 out, but Saylor Liggatt handled a ground ball to short, looked the tying runner back to 3^rd and fired low to first, but Paige Heiman made an outstanding scoop to record the 2^nd out.  Mohler then buckled down to get a fly ball to left field to escape the jam.

That momentum carried over to the top of the 6^th as the Eagles fired up the bats with four singles to score 3 runs and give Silver Lake a healthy 4-0 cushion.  Mohler led off with a single, McKenna Harris laid down a perfect bunt for a single and Mohler alertly went from 1^st to 3^rd on the play. Peyton May came in to run for Harris and promptly stole second.  Audrey Kirk then delivered an RBI single to make it 2-0.  May then scored on a wild pitch with Kirk advancing to 3^rd and shortly after, Kirk came home on a dropped 3^rd strike vs Mariah Kortan to push the lead to 4-0. 

Mohler finished with a complete game, 4 hit shut-out as she mowed down the next 6 Trojan batters, including the last on a strikeout, which led to her jumping into her catcher, Tyler Swygert’s arms, to celebrate clinching the school’s 14^th State Softball Championship and their first under head coach Nick Hamilton!

Liggatt led the offense with 2 hits while Kirk, Hanni, Mohler, and Harris each added a hit and a run scored.

The Lady Eagles finish their state title campaign with a 28-4 record while SE Saline saw their 23 game win streak snapped to end with a 26-2 mark.

With the win on Saturday, the Silver Lake Lady Eagles pulled off the hat trick as they became only the 4^th school in Kansas State High School history to win State Championships in Volleyball, Basketball, and Softball in the same school year!!!

To go back to listen to the full radio broadcast of the 3A State Title game, click on the audio link at the top of this story.