Kylie Wilhite and the Chaffee Lady Devils wiggled out of a first-inning jam unscathed then shut down the defending MSHSAA Class 1 state champs Thursday.
Wilhite tossed a three-hit shutout, Carlie Milz drove in three runs, including the go-ahead hit in the top of the first, as Chaffee beat Van Buren 7-0 in the District 1 championship at Three Rivers College.
"Couldn't get it going at the plate," Van Buren coach Jack Childress said. "We made a few errors and it snowballed on us."
Chaffee (16-11) will host the District 2 champion Wednesday in the opening round of the state playoffs after ending the Lady Dawgs' reign as defending champs.
Van Buren ended with a 19-7 record a year after beating the Devils for the district title on a walk-off hit.
"That's why it's so exciting after the heartbreak last year," Chaffee coach Brian Horrell said.
The Devils jumped ahead in the first inning with a run after consecutive one-out errors on dropped fly balls. Milz, who was 3 for 4, followed with an RBI single past the third baseman but Van Buren got out of the two-on, one-out jam.
Wilhite faced a similar situation in the bottom half of the inning.
Van Buren's Morgan Shockley singled with one out and moved to third on Courtney Tripp's double down the right-field line.
Wilhite struck out the next two hitters, needing 11 pitches to preserve the lead.
Childress said he thought about squeezing across a run with clean-up hitter Sydney Sanders batting.
"These girls have a mentality that they love to squeeze and I didn't squeeze," Childress said.
Wilhite made the decision harder by throwing consecutive strikes to get ahead in the count.
"Should I have squeezed on the first pitch? Most of the time you don't," Childress said. "You want to get a count where they throw it in there. I don't know."
The Lady Dawgs didn't have another base runner until the sixth inning and by then they were down seven runs.
Van Buren came in averaging 8.0 runs per game and had scored at least three in all but one, a shutout loss to Class 4 Jackson on Sept. 26, and scored 10 runs in six innings the previous day to oust Naylor in the semifinal.
"(Wilhite) settled down and she got in a rhythm and our defense made a couple of nice plays behind her," Horrell said. "We had a couple of quick innings there in the middle of the game and that just built momentum."
Chaffee led 1-0 until three straight hits opened the third.
Bailey Wiseman singled past a diving third baseman then scored from first base on Sydney Walker's double to the left-field wall. Milz doubled in a run and later scored on Wilhite's single up the middle for a 4-0 lead.
Bridgette Swinford scored after one-out hit in the fourth when Bailey Wiseman doubled down the left-field line. Milz added a two-out RBI double on a fly ball down the left-field line that fell in just beyond a diving shortstop.
Swinford led off the sixth with a single and scored from second after a sacrifice bunt and Walker's liner off the hand of Van Buren pitcher Jaylyn Morgan into centerfield.
Morgan didn't walk a batter and struck out four.
"They were hitting it hard," Childress said. "It was something that hadn't happened this whole fall where we just didn't get a thing going."
Wilhite retired 19 of the final 20 she faced, including 16 straight until Shockley's single through the left side in the sixth. Chaffee caught eight fly balls, took care of seven grounders and caught Shockley in a rundown following a pick-off throw to end the sixth.
"We didn't show up with the bats," Childress said. "I should have brought some other bats. Kind of looked like the Cardinals some."