Perennial star Mullen leads perennial power Hawks
Pressure? What pressure? If there is anything resembling pressure on Hermantown’s return to Caswell Park in North Mankato this week to defend its Class AA Minnesota state high school softball championship, it was not noticeable — and with good reason.
The Section 7AA tournament provided as much pressure as Hermantown(23-4) was prepared to face Pipestone Area (20-1) in the opening state tournament game. It turned out that Hermantown beat Pipestone, and won a semifinal game as well, but lost in the championship game to fall one short of repeating as state champs.
But getting there was enough of a chore to remain in the Hermantown players’ memory banks forever. After the Hawks won their third straight Section 7AA title, coach Tom Bang acknowledged that he had an unfair advantage after the Hawks survived four consecutive elimination games to win the Section 7AA championship at Braun Park in Cloquet.
“Any time you have No. 4 going on the mound for you, you know you’ve got a real good chance,” said Bang.
No. 4 is Megan Mullen, whose pitching and hitting decided last Thursday’s pair of must-win victories over Duluth Central, who gave the most credit back to Bang. Mullen and fellow-senior Julia Gilbert have been standouts for four straight years, while Ellen Folman, another senior, has been a regular for three seasons.
That was no guarantee of anything, of course. In the sectional, the Hawks lost a 3-2 opening game to an aroused Duluth Central team, which was playing its final season as a separate entity before a controversial merging with Denfeld takes hold and the “red and white” falls victim to the “Red Plan.”
After upsetting Hermantown to open play on Tuesday of last week, Central also beat Denfeld to stand undefeated, while Hermantown had to beat Greenway of Coleraine right after the loss to Central, then had to also beat Denfeld in another battle the same day, where the loser was finished for the season.
That sent Hermantown back to the Thursday finals against Central, and the determined Hawks — knowing they had to beat Central twice to capture the title — blew out the Trojans 8-0 to set up an immediate rematch. With both teams having one loss, one more loss would mean the end of the season for Hermantown, and the end of the season and the program for Central.
Mullen and Central freshman Sarah Hendrickson duelled through three scoreless innings, then Mullen drove in the first two runs in the fourth, and another in the fifth, and pitched the Hawks to a 3-1 victory.
“Over the years, we’ve had a lot of outstanding players, including Lindsay Erickson, who went on to play for the Gophers,” said Bang, who is completing his 31st season as the architect of the dominant program. “But I’d have to say Megan Mullen is the most talented pitcher I’ve had, and probably the best player. We had four seniors last year, and 14 returned from the tournament roseter for this year.”
And it was Bang, Mullen said, whose strategic maneuvers helped turn Tuesday’s 3-2 loss into Thursday’s 8-0, 3-1 sweep, with the two setbacks ending Central’s outstanding season at 17-7. Central’s players played hard through both games, and showed great spirit, with their emotions finally running over during their final post-game huddle. The intensity of the two games meant both teams spent everything on the field, and in the end, Mullen’s hitting was a pivotal difference.
“My hitting?” said Mullen. “Tuesday didn’t go so good, but today worked out better. We set goals at the start of the season, and one of my goals was to bat over .400. I don’t know for sure what my average is now, but it’s somewhere around .420. But the biggest difference between us losing 3-2 to Central, and beating them twice is Mr. Bang. When they beat us, Central definitely had their bats going real well, but in these two games, Mr. Bang called the pitches. He had watched all their hitters, and that made a big difference. Central’s hitters are really good, and they recognize change-ups and adjust to hit them. So today we went with more hard stuff — I would say 98 percent of my pitches.”
Bang said his signal calling required no special genius, and he continued to go with her fast ball and other power pitches. “Her rise ball is hard, her curve is hard, and she has a little screwball that goes outside-in to right-handed hitters,” said Bang. “I like to get ahead in the count, so I like her fastball down and in or down and out. During the season, we beat Central 1-0 on a passed ball that only got about 6 feet away from their catcher, but Julia Gilbert beat the play home. Megan struck out 18 of 21 outs in that one.”
Mullen’s windmill pitching — which will be on display next season as a freshman at UMD — deserved high praise. She allowed four hits, walked one and struck out nine in the 8-0 game, when Bang took her ouot after five innings. With both teams mobilized for an all-out effort in the decisive second game, Mullen went all seven innings, allowed five hits, no walks, and struck out nine again. She sailed through six innings, giving up three hits, walking none and striking out nine, and just when it appeared she would hurl back-to-back shutout gems, Molly Jadzewski led off the seventh by blasting a home run over the right-centerfield fence, and Kylie Murray added a single before Mullen got out of further trouble.
But Mullen’s hitting was just as pivotal. Hermantown established itself with a 5-run top of the first inning. Mullen’s double drove in the first run, and Ellen Folman singled home two more. It got better in the second game, after Central regrouped to make its final bid, and Hendrickson battled Mullen evenly until the last of the fourth.
It was 0-0 when Julia Gilbert beat out a bunt single leading off the fourth and stole second. Rudi Summers bunted her to third and beat it out for another hit, then she also stole second, putting runners at second and third with none out. Mullen came up next and drilled a single to right, driving in both Gilbert and Summers for a 2-0 lead. That might have been the biggest hit of the season for Hermantown, but in case more was needed, Mullen singled home another run in the fifth to make it 3-0.
Going 2-3 and driving in all three runs was enough to deserve the spotlight, if it wasn’t for Mullen’s strong pitching. At the state tournament, of course, everybody has a story of similar heroics, and even though Mullen threw yet another no-hitter in the semifinals, the Hawks fell just short.
CENTRAL’S FINAL BID
On the other side of the Section 7AA final, Central coach Nat Brown knew what his Trojans were up against in the quest to finish off Hermantown.
“We knew going in that even though we were undefeated, we were going to have a tough time,” said Brown. “In our two earlier games against Hermantown [the 1-0 loss and Tuesday’s 3-2 victory], Julia Gilbert had scored all three runs against us, so how important was it to keep her off the bases? But we came out tight, she’s the first hitter up, we boot it, and they go on to score five.
“That made it tough. You don’t want to raise a white flag, but you almost wish you could just call the game and get ready for the second game.”
Brown pulled Sarah Hendrickson, who emerged as a standout pitcher despite being only a ninth-grader, after three innings, to help her get replenished for the rematch. She responded with a strong 5-hitter in the second game, striking out five.
“Sarah felt so bad between games,” said Brown. “She came up to me and said, ‘Sorry I let you down.’ I told her, ‘You’ve never let me down for a second.’ ”
Having finished his 10th year coaching, Brown now must re-apply to see if he will be allowed to continue coaching the newly combined Central-Denfeld team next year.
BANG’S EVENTFUL YEAR
Hermantown coach Tom Bang has had what you might call an eventful year since last year since the school year ended. On June 9, the Hawks won the state title — the school’s third. On June 10, he went in for heart surgery. He retired as a teacher, but he said he would stay on as softball coach. Now they’ve earned their way back to the state tournament for the chance to defend their state title, which begins one day after the anniversary of last year’s championship.
“I had a problem with my bicuspid heart valve, and developed an anorism in my aorta,” Bang said. “They replaced it with a metal valve on June 10. I knew the previous November that I would have to have the surgery, and one doctor said I should hve it within six months, so I knew I could make it until the season was over.”
By a day. With his heart situation in mind, was that why his players didn’t try to give him a Gatorade dowsing after winning the 7AA title? “No,” said Bang. “They got me last year, and I faked a heart attack.”
Bang, a lifetime resident of Hermantown, played baseball and football at the school before graduating in 1969.
“I started teaching in 1978, so I don’t know if that means I’ve coached 31 or 32 years,” said Bang.
Jill, his wife, knows full well that this is his 31st year coaching. It turns out that June 9 not only was the day the Hawks won last year’s state title, it was the 31st anniversary of Tom and Jill’s wedding. Three children, three state titles, and two state runner-up finishes later, Jill still remembers. “He didn’t really tell me about the coaching,” said Jill. “But if they’d won one more game that year, he would have missed our wedding rehearsal.”
This is the 17th time Bang has taken Hermantown to the state tournament in his 31 seasons. It also is the Hawks’ ninth straight Class AA tournament, although Hermantown took a break when it was boosted up to Class AAA for two years. That means Hermantown went to state in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005, then moved up and failed to make the state AAA tournament in 2006 and 2007, and since returning to Class AA, the Hawks have won three straight sectionals.
Obviously, he hasn’t lost his passion for coaching, or his skill at maneuvering his carefully cultivated talent for success. And he’s learned to be a little flexible, too. They ran into daylong rain on Tuesday, but they held a pre-state tournament practice Monday. How did it go?
“It wasn’t bad, considering,” said Bang. “School’s out now, and the seniors had their all-night graduation party, so not everybody was as sharp as they could be.”
They were razor sharp for the state tournament, and fell just shy of their ultimate goal after a brilliant effort.
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About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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