Johnson, Yanes shine in Rockets’ win

ROCKFORD – To advance as the one team out of the 3A Boylan Regional, Rock Falls relied on the performances of No. 1 pitcher Payton Yanes and No. 1 hitter Payton Johnson.

Yanes struck out 11 and allowed just three Freeport baserunners in Saturday’s regional championship game at Sportscore One, while Johnson reached base in all three of her plate appearances, stole three bases, and scored both of the Rockets’ runs in a 2-0 victory.

Johnson set the tone offensively as soon as play started, as she smacked the first pitch she saw from Pretzels pitcher Taylor Murray for a single.

“I swung at the first pitch both times,” Johnson said. “I just attacked it every chance I had.”

Johnson then stole second, moved to third on a groundout by Taylor Hoefler, and Yanes brought her classmate home on a perfectly-executed squeeze bunt.

“PJ and I run that so much,” Yanes said. “We were talking in the fourth inning how it’s always us that run that. There was a season where I didn’t hit at all, I just bunted. So that doesn’t make me nervous at all.”

Yanes also set the tone in the circle from the start, striking out the first five Freeport hitters she faced. She pounded the zone throughout, tossing 71 strikes to just 24 balls.

“Her composure is unbelievable,” Rock Falls coach Kris Smith said of Yanes. “She just works her tail off. And she doesn’t just stand there, she goes for balls that aren’t in the circle. She’s a competitor. She knew she had to give it everything she had, and she did that. She looked really good.”

Freeport (24-4) tied Hononegah for the NIC-10 title this season, and hadn’t been held under four runs all year. Yanes dominated the Pretzels’ toughest hitters, recording 10 of her 11 strikeouts against Freeport’s top five hitters in the lineup.

“This morning, I was so nervous,” Yanes said. “I told my mom that I didn’t know how I was going to get through this game. And my dad sent me a paragraph-long text telling me that I belong on the field. That gave me the confidence I needed, and our defense and bats had my back.”

Rock Falls (25-6), which tied Stillman Valley for the Big Northern crown, manufactured another run in the sixth inning. Johnson was hit by a pitch with one out, stole second, and advanced the next 120 feet on the basepaths thanks to wild pitches by Murray.

“The thing with PJ is she’s fearless on the bases,” Smith said of Johnson. “Her and Taylor Hoefler get on base, and it isn’t, ‘I hope I make it.’ It’s more, ‘Sorry, I’m going to make it.’ She’s so quick that you have to have a perfect throw to get her out, and even then, she’s safe a lot of the time.”

“I lean back and just take off,” Johnson added. “My timing is everything.”

Yanes allowed one-out hits in the bottom of the third and fourth innings, and allowed her only walk of the game with one out in the sixth. However, the Rockets ace buckled down when she needed to, ending scoring threats with a mix of strikeouts and putouts by her defense.

“When we got runners on, it was with one or two outs. That kind of limited us,” Freeport coach Chad Hersey said. “We’ve got a good small-ball team and some good power. I was confident our offense would come along, but it didn’t. [Yanes] has five or six pitches, and her curveball was really good.”

Yanes ended the game with a 1-2-3 bottom of the seventh, recording a strikeout, popout and lineout. As soon as second baseman Jaida Dean squeezed the final out, the celebration was on in the circle.

Bailee Reynolds and Elise Moeller each went 1-for-3 for the Rockets. Murray took the hard-luck loss for Freeport, going seven innings and striking out nine over 91 pitches.