Darien Huffman (left) and Jannae Jackson scream with delight after the Lady Miners defeated Wheeler 5-2 in the Class 2A state semifinals Friday night in Indianapolis. (By B.J. Hargis/Greene County Daily World).

The game of softball not always come down to who has the best pitcher or the better team. Sometimes creating your own breaks and having lady luck on your side plays a big role in the success of a team as well.

The Linton-Stockton softball team is a prime example of this. This past weekend the Miners quest for a state championship fell just short, as they came up on the losing end of a 1-0 decision to Madison-Grant in the Class 2A championship game.

Before the Miners fell to Madison-Grant, they knocked off the 27-2 Lady Bearcats from Wheeler. I am no expert on picking games, other wise I would be in Vegas getting rich, but I would have guessed the Miners outcome would have been just the opposite in playing the same two teams.

Some people asked my opinion on the Miners faith for this past weekend. My prediction was Wheeler would have slipped by the Lady Miners in extra innings. I think my exact pick was Wheeler 2, Linton-Stockton 1 in 13 innings.

Sports editor B.J. Hargis always gives me a hard time about me being the "softball guru", but I am not afraid to go on record and admit I was wrong about my picks from this past weekend.

After the Miners proved this sports writer wrong, I stuck around and watched the second semifinal game to see who their opponent would be for the title game. Once again I was wrong about the outcome of this game, as I, along with just about every other sports writer I spoke with, was picking No. 1 ranked Indianapolis Scecina to cruise to the title game. The Argylls came away with a 3-0 win over the Crusaders as they used some timely hitting and great defense, which has been the Miners key throughout their post season run.

After watching both games I was convinced that I would be spending the rest of my weekend trying to track down certain players from Linton-Stockton's first state championship team for feature stories for the rest of the week. As each inning past in the championship game, I was trying to come up with story ideas and who I was going to talk with and so on.

A near home run by Stephanie Fougerousse in the first inning -- which I still say from my angle the ball crossed fair -- then a two-single single by Samantha Butt that was snatched out of nowhere by a diving right fielder prevented the Lady Miners from getting ahead early.

Linton-Stockton just kept putting runners on base, which is the same formula they used one night prior to erupting for five runs in the fifth inning in a 5-2 victory over Wheeler, and I was for sure they would have one more late inning magic inning to cap off the dream season.

The top of the fifth inning passed with the Miners squandering another opportunity with two runners on base with less than two outs. Then the Lady Argylls came up and took advantage of a lead-off walk, a sacrifice bunt then a run-scoring single that was narrowly missed, for a 1-0 lead. I don't have the numbers to prove this theory, but I would just about bet anything, the team that strikes first, especially in the late innings, between two evenly matched teams, is going to win nine times out of ten.

Senior Izzy Carpenter would lead off the top of the sixth inning with a double and I was thinking the sixth inning was going to be the championship clincher for the Miners. But once again the Miners were unable to manufacture a run leaving them down to their last three outs.

After Sam Fields, the Argylls 5-6 shortstop climbed the ladder to rob Darien Huffman of a single and ended the dream season for the locals, I couldn't help but think the Lady Miners outplayed the Argylls in every facet of the game, but just could not catch the break they needed to pull out the win.

Taking nothing away from Madison-Grant, who won the school's first state title for any sport, but I would venture to say if determining the state title is like it is for the College World Series -- best two out of three -- the Lady Miners would be dancing in the streets still as we speak now.

But with seven starters that were underclassmen on this year's runner-up team, like the famous saying in Chicago goes, there is always next year.

Congrats to everyone involved with the Miner softball team on a fantastic season and keep building for next season.

Travis David is a sports writer for the Greene County Daily World and can be reached at 812-847-4487 ext. 20 or tdavid@gcdailyworld.com