Jamie Glenn/Daily Mining Gazette L’Anse’s Kailyn Voskuhl stretches before delivering a pitch during Division 4 District 98 action Saturday. The Purple Hornets won the tournament.

ict title on the line Saturday, the hosting L’Anse Purple Hornets crushed their way through for a 12-2 win over the Ishpeming Hematites to take the Division 4 District 98 championship on their own field.

In the day’s final game, senior Josie Rice went the distance for the Hornets to get the pitching win, going seven innings and giving up five hits and two walks while striking out one.

“Their pitcher is really good,” Ishpeming manager Ben McGuire said. “We hit a lot of balls, but they made no errors and seemed to catch everything we hit.”

Losing hurler Hailey Hytinen started and went four innings, allowing eight runs on 11 hits and a walk while also fanning one. Tia Mattila went the final three innings, allowing four runs on two hits with five walks as she K’d four.

L’Anse jumped out early, building a 5-0 lead after its half of the third inning. Ishpeming (10-16) got single runs in the third and fifth.

Senior Haley Nankervis paced the Hornets with four hits, including a double, and drew a walk as she knocked in two runs and scored five times.

Sophomore teammate Maija Rice had a double and single and two RBIs, while fellow sophomore Kathleen Tollefson had a pair of singles, a walk and scored twice. And junior Kailyn Voskuhl had a single, walk and scored three times.

Hematites senior Madison Pruett cracked a pair of doubles and collected two RBIs. Fellow senior Korey Kaukola and freshmen Ella Luke and Olivia Corp each had a single.

“We had seven girls who had never played fastpitch (softball) before,” McGuire said, “but we also had four seniors who started all four years. They won 64 games and a couple district titles in their time here.”

L’Anse 10, Gwinn 0

The Purple Hornets had two runners on base in the bottom of the first inning but could not convert, they would hold the Modeltowners and get their first run of the day off a pop up and drop to left field by freshman Summer Dudo, allowing Josie Rice to run in from second base.

“They came out in the first inning and they played hard,” said L’Anse assistant coach Doug Mills. “That’s been one of the issues with our team but they were sharp this morning, they showed up early, they were all into the game right away.”

Manager Janet Rossi and Mills highlighted the play off Purple Hornets junior pitcher Kailyn Voskuhl, who blasted grand slam to right giving Tollefson, Dudo and Nankervis all an opportunity to touch home, giving the hosts an early 5-0 lead.

“We expected a little bit slower pitching, and we worked on that during practice all this week to get ready for that because we kind of have difficulties with slower pitching and it seemed to have paid off,” said Rossi. “Pitching went really well. Kailyn (Voskuhl) had a no-hitter. (We had) good defense too.”

“We got some big hits from Voskuhl and that set the stage, and they kept scoring,” said Mills. “We did exactly what we wanted to do in this game. (We) took care of business.”

L’Anse carried the momentum through the rest of the game, slowly but surely chipping away at their first win of the day with Maija Rice hitting a fly ball to left field to bring Dudo home, extending the lead to six in the bottom of the fourth inning. Nankervis kept things moving with a run scored off two walks.

Dudo struck again with a line drive to the middle left side of the field for Josie Rice to walk one in. Senior Jaylyn Foy finished things off with a hit left allowing freshman Taylor Sanregret and Voskuhl to push the team to the 10 runs needed to end the game.

Gwinn manager Dan Shelafoe congratulated L’Anse on a strong offensive game and reflected on the two years he spent leading Gwinn.

“L’Anse played pretty good offense there,” he said. “There were a couple of times that we could’ve played defense a little bit better, but I congratulate L’Anse on a good game (and) a good win.

“Unfortunately, I’m retiring as a coach here (at Gwinn) but I’m going to pass some information (regarding) were the girls are and hopefully their next coach can lead them on.”

“It was awesome,” he said. “I love the game. This has been my sport for forever and is why I did it (coached). I wanted to show the girls what I had. Some of the girls have learned pretty well.”

Superior Central and Ishpeming faced off in the other semifinal with Ishpeming winning, 7-4.