Willcox ace Hattie Macumber struck out a Little League Softball World Series-record 15 batters in a regulation game in her team’s 2-1 win Sunday over Mid-Atlantic (Greenburg, Pa.) in an opening-round game at Greenville, N.C.
Macumber’s strikeout total is the most in regulation (six innings) since Lauren Mathis of Windermere, Fla., (Southeast) had 14 in the 2012 LLSWS.
The LLSWS record for strikeouts is 18, owned by Macy Rickards for Delmar, Md., (Mid-Atlantic) in a 2022 game that went seven innings.
Willcox, representing the West, will play Rhode Island (Northeast) in the next round of the winners bracket on Monday at 10 a.m., Tucson time, on ESPN-Plus. Rhode Island received a bye and will play its first game at Greenville against Willcox.
Macumber allowed three hits, a walk and one run while facing 22 batters. She threw 89 pitches, 69 of them strikes. Willcox’s defense did not commit an error.
“She pitched phenomenal,” Willcox manager Patrick Macumber told AllSportsTucson.com about his daughter. “She shines brightest on the biggest stage. She had a great outing. She pitches a lot more freely when she trusts her defense behind her.
“She was feeling good and her teammates were feeling good behind her.”
Willcox finally broke through in the bottom of the fourth inning after leaving runners stranded at third base in the first two innings and having a runner thrown out at home in the first inning.
With one out in the fourth inning, Jayleen Aguirre — Macumber’s batterymate — reached base on a dropped third strike.
Macumber followed with a single to right field. A throwing error by the outfielder allowed Aguirre to move to third base and Macumber to second.
Lily Williams was then hit by a pitch to load the bases.
Julie Larson followed with a groundball to the shortstop, who tried to apply the force out at home plate with a throw to the catcher but the throw was off the mark. Aguirre and Macumber scored on the throwing error to give Willcox a 2-0 lead.
Larson is the cleanup hitter with Aguirre the leadoff batter and Macumber in the No. 2 spot followed by Williams. Patrick Macumber was impressed with the bottom portion of the lineup against Mid-Atlantic starter Lexi Stabile.
The Nos. 5-12 batters recorded one hit but they had a walk and recorded either flyball or groundball outs five times while striking out four times. No. 10 extended batter Nevaeh Reyes had a single.
“We we’re getting some some contacts in the back half of our lineup, which was nice,” the elder Macumber said. “We weren’t necessarily getting on base with that, but we were definitely making contact. The pitcher (Stabile) was pretty tough. It was a pretty solid pitcher’s duel there.”
Stabile allowed three hits with the two runs unearned with two walks and six strikeouts.
.@ArizonaSoftball pitcher @Aissa2023, who has befriended and become a mentor to pitcher Hattie Macumber and catcher Jayleen Aguirre, wished Willcox best of luck during the ESPN-Plus broadcast of the Little League World Series. "Hattie, you've been doing amazing pitching and it's… pic.twitter.com/3Nccg4fZPG
— Javier Morales (@JavierJMorales) August 4, 2024
Mid-Atlantic rallied in the top of the fifth after Piper Hoppel singled and Jocelyn Luft walked to start the inning.
After Hoppel was on third base and Luft on second following a passed ball and defensive indifference, Morgan Maiers hit an infield single that scored Hoppel and cut the lead to 2-1.
Macumber battled her way out of the inning by getting the next three batters out on a fielder’s choice and two strikeouts.
The fielder’s choice was Macumber throwing to the plate on a grounder after she faked that she was throwing to first base. The throw was in time to get the runner at home but Mid-Atlantic challenged with a review. The call was confirmed.
“Hattie’s fun to have on your team and we really push the, ‘bend, don’t break,'” Patrick Macumber said. “She had that play where she faked the one runner and then had the throw-out at home. That gave her another bit of juice to her and excitement. That picked up her pitching again and helped refocus her.
“It also didn’t hurt that they took a timeout to challenge that play at home. They knew it wasn’t going to win, but it’s like, ‘I got two challenges, might as well use one.’ That gave her a little break where she could refocus herself and pull it back together.”
Willcox could not add an insurance run against Stabile in the bottom of the fifth despite having a runner on third base.
Macumber, whose pitching coach is legendary CDO coach Kelly Fowler, struck out the side in the sixth inning to complete the game.
“The 15 strikeouts really helps out a lot,” Patrick Macumber said. “And setting the Little World Series record (in regulation) in the 50th year, that was pretty cool. We didn’t know about that until I checked my phone afterwards.”
The elder Macumber said his team will spend the rest of the day watching Little League World Series games with a slight possibility of practicing on an adjacent open field.
“We’re gonna go watch some softball,” he said. “We’re gonna enjoy this thing a little bit. We’ve done our work for the day. We usually have practice or two practices in the day, but these girls worked hard today. There’s a grass field out here. If this gets a little stale, and I get antsy, we might go out and have a little practice at the grass field out here.
“But we’ll have kind of a recovery and rehydration. It’s so humid here (82 percent humidity with a high temperature of 86 degrees at Greenville). The girls are just pouring buckets of sweat. We’re going to do a lot of rehydration but I also want them to be part of this. Everybody talks about great memories from here and I don’t want it to be only a work trip. It’s definitely a work trip with a little bit of enjoyment.”
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator in 2016 and is presently a special education teacher at Sunnyside High School in the Sunnyside Unified School District.
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