USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

To the extreme dismay of schoolchildren everywhere, the semifinal series between the Los Angeles Queens and the New York Heights came down to which team was the most thorough in completing its homework. In any league, a playoff series provides the opportunity to devote more dedicated study time to an opponent than is typically afforded by the day-to-day grind of the regular season. It’s a group project with season-ending consequences, if not done properly. Both sides delivered a strong showing during the practical exam, but Monday’s decisive Game 3 ended with a 15-11 victory for Los Angeles. Yet, despite the win on the scoreboard and in the series, it would be a bridge too far to say that the Queens aced the test. At several points during the series, the Heights posed a question and the Queens had no answer, but Los Angeles kept New York guessing too, and you can only default to bubbling in B on the scantron so many times before your score starts to look ugly.

Here’s the game-by-game breakdown of how the Queens ultimately outwitted the Heights.

Game 1

Queens Game 1 starter Michelle Roche was interviewed on the field following their 10-3 win. She went five innings, threw a modest 65 pitches, and allowed just one run on four hits and a walk with two strikeouts. When asked what made her so effective, Roche said the team’s pitchers and catchers got together and, “Went through all the data, all of the games, and just figured out the weaknesses of their batting, but also the strengths of our pitching — and just went with our strengths.”

By contrast, here’s a quote from Heights manager Rocky Henley during a postgame press conference on August 19, “I really don’t know about Trackman yet. Trackman is available, but it takes so much time,” she said. “My days are just so full of other things right now that I just can’t sit down and learn Trackman. I need someone to actually walk me through it, so I can kind of learn a little bit more about it, and I’m waiting for that day. Maybe this weekend, I can really sit down on Sunday and start really diving into those numbers.”

I haven’t seen Henley comment publicly on Trackman since, but given that other professional and amateur teams around the sport employ staffers with a dedicated focus on analyzing and interpreting pitch-tracking data, it seems unlikely that an afternoon or even these past few weeks would’ve been enough time to learn enough about how it works to actually start using it effectively.

Henley’s coaching background comes from the women’s side of baseball, and while it offers her unique strengths and perspective that the managers coming from the men’s side of the sport don’t have, all three of the league’s other managers had access to pitch-tracking data and other performance technologies during their time in and around the majors. But since women’s baseball doesn’t have the same resources and infrastructure, Henley hasn’t gotten that same exposure. The Heights may have gotten by without much advance scouting during the regular season, but going without that more granular and comprehensive data in the postseason is choosing to game plan on hard mode.

It didn’t help that the Heights had to game plan for a pitcher they hadn’t faced before. Roche made six appearances during the regular season, and the Queens played the Heights five times. And yet, the stars never aligned for Roche to face the Heights. Her approach mixes “funky stuff,” as one Heights hitter described her breaking pitches, with a fastball that she commands well to all parts of the zone, and she makes the whole experience even more uncomfortable for the batter by working incredibly fast. After Game 1, Queens catcher Jamie Mackay confessed to being out of breath just trying to catch Roche. Meanwhile, the Heights had to figure out how to try and hit her based on film and very little else.

And given that Roche and the pitchers were hitting the heat maps, it seems highly likely the Queens hitters did the same. Like the pitching staff, the hitters probably looked for weaknesses in the New York hurlers alongside their own tendencies in the box. Their studies churned out a heavily revised version of their offense. After averaging 4.5 walks and 4.7 strikeouts per game in the regular season (with 4.6 walks and 7.4 strikeouts per game when playing the Heights), during this three-game series, the Queens averaged 6.7 walks and 2.3 strikeouts per game. Those improvements to their plate discipline correlated with an increase from 10.1 hits per game during the regular season to 12.7 hits per game in the postseason, and a jump from 7.5 runs per game in the regular season to 10.7 runs per game in the series. (Specifically against the Heights during the regular season, the Queens averaged 9.8 hits and 7.6 runs per game.)

Small sample caveats apply, and it’s possible that the New York pitching staff just happened to have a not-so-effectively-wild stretch of games — we’ll certainly find out whether this production is sustainable when the Queens face the Firebells this week — but those changes are dramatic enough to be worth keeping an eye on. Perhaps most heartening is that a decent chunk of Los Angeles’ 20 walks during the series came from the lighter-hitting corners of the lineup, such as Mo’ne Davis (3), Amira Hondras (3), Sarah Edwards (2), and Ayuri Shimano (2). Those players may have a clutch hit or two to their names, but they also may have fallen into some over-aggressive habits amid their struggle to find consistency at the plate.

By the time Roche exited following the fifth, the Queens had staked a 4-1 lead. Manager Eric Young Sr. handed the ball to two-way player Isabella Villareal, who revealed near the end of the regular season that she was still recovering from the hamstring strain that caused her to miss several weeks during August. Villareal allowed two walks and a single to the first three batters she faced, and that was enough for Young to make the call to bring in closer Meggie Meidlinger to face Heights third baseman Alyssa Zettlemoyer. Here’s how that went:

Meidlinger got Eccles to fly out for the final out of the sixth, and the Queens returned to the dugout with the pitcher’s spot in the order due up fourth in the following half-inning. As one of just a handful of pitcher-only players in the WPBL, Meidlinger does not usually bat, so when she does it’s a special occasion, one that the Los Angeles dugout celebrates by dancing along to her walk-up music.

If that was the excitement level when Meidlinger picked up a bat, imagine her teammates’ exuberance when she notched her first hit in the WPBL. Actually, no need to imagine.

But it wasn’t all dancing and fist pumps for Meidlinger. After the Queens put up two runs in the sixth and another four in the seventh, their lead was 10-1 when Meidlinger went back out to face the top of the Heights order and seal the win. The closer did finish the job, but not before the Heights roughed her up for two runs on a double, two singles, and an error. Unphased (and perhaps even more fired up than usual), Meidlinger got shortstop Val Perez to ground into a double play. A fly out from pitcher Keira Izumi cut short New York’s attempted comeback.

Game 2

Between Games 1 and 2, Heights closer Jaida Lee appeared on the WPBL’s broadcast of Game 2 between the Hunters and the Firebells. During that conversation, Lee conceded that the Heights could have done more to prepare for Game 1. Naturally, she was asked what type of preparation was in the works for Game 2, and she replied that they were watching a ton of video. No mention of data, pitch-tracking or otherwise. There’s no denying the value of film study, but supplementing the practice with data makes it much more efficient and minimizes the likelihood of overlooking patterns and tendencies.

Nevertheless, the New York offense did break out for nine runs in Game 2, which was enough to outlast the Queens for a 9-7 victory and force a Game 3. Mackay started for Los Angeles and allowed one run on three hits and a walk over two innings. She pitched infrequently during the regular season, logging just over 10 innings, and her last appearance was a rather disastrous outing against the Heights on September 3, when she allowed 11 runs (seven earned) over 2 1/3 innings. After a comparatively smooth couple of innings, Ayami Sato entered in relief for just the second time all season. At age 36, Sato’s season has been more up and down than when she was in her prime and winning World Cup titles for Team Japan. She’s been extremely hittable at times this year, but still mixes in plenty of innings where you can see why she’s considered one of the best pitchers the women’s game has ever seen. You can pretty much tell which version of Sato you’re getting on any given day based on the swing-and-miss. On her best days, Sato still gets hitters to look silly whiffing at pitches high and tight or low and away.

The Heights have seen a lot of Sato this year. Eleven of her 23 innings pitched have come against the Heights, and they’ve had her number, tagging her for 22 runs (13 earned) and racking up 26 hits and two walks, with just seven strikeouts. Game 2 was more of the same. Sato threw three innings, and the Heights got to her for six runs (five earned) on eight hits and one walk with zero strikeouts. Given their track record against Sato, I’m not sure that performance benefitted much from the additional prep.

Amira Hondras pitched a scoreless sixth, then passed the ball to Meidlinger for her second appearance in as many games. In addition to facing Meidlinger twice in this series, the Heights also saw quite a bit of her during the regular season. O’Sullivan was 1-for-2 with a single and a walk against the Queens closer, then reached on an error against her in Game 1. In Izumi’s lone regular-season plate appearance against Meidlinger, she drove a ball to left that Thaima Maximiliana dropped, allowing Izumi to reach. She also hit a fly ball to center against Meidlinger in Game 1, but that time it was caught for the out.

Why the fixation on O’Sullivan and Izumi’s histories with Meidlinger? Because with one out in the seventh inning of a tie game, O’Sullivan and Izumi took Meidlinger deep on back-to-back jacks. The pair of long balls gave the Heights the lead for good. Again, Meidlinger is somewhat of a known quantity for the Heights, so maybe that, plus their additional film study and her appearing after throwing two innings in Game 1, helped them get to the league’s only qualified pitcher with a sub-2.00 ERA.

But what’s perhaps stranger about the Heights’ somewhat improbable comeback against a lockdown closer is how they did it. Setting aside Denae Benites and her 11 regular-season home runs (tied for the league lead), the Heights are not a power-hitting team. No one else on the roster had more than two home runs. They finished last in the league in doubles. They are a speed-and-singles offense that scores runs in bunches by clustering hits together. It’s an offensive style disproportionately affected by slumps and easily stymied by an unfamiliar opponent or a pitcher with her best stuff working. And as Game 2 proves, that type of offense can only take you so far unless you can still come through with the occasional timely home run.

New York’s pitching did look sharper in Game 2, with the exception of O’Sullivan’s last inning of work. But her hitting the wall on the mound did evoke some strategy from the Heights manager. O’Sullivan entered in the fourth, and other than a hit-by-pitch to start the fifth, she looked solid for the first inning and two-thirds, but then things started to unravel. She escaped the fifth still clinging to a two-run lead, but came back out for the sixth and allowed the first four batters to reach. With two runs already in and runners on first and second, O’Sullivan threw a wild pitch to Mackay that ran the count to 2-1, allowed the runners to both move up a bag, and prompted a mound visit from Henley.

After a brief conversation, Henley signaled for a mid-plate-appearance pitching change. But she didn’t bring in a pitcher from the bullpen. Instead, Eccles jogged in from center field. The knuckleballer dropped a strike in the zone to even the count, then got Mackay to pop a foul back and out of play. Eccles missed well wide with her next pitch, and Mackay ripped her fourth offering foul just outside of third. The eighth pitch of the plate appearance (fifth from Eccles) just missed for ball four. With the bases now loaded, Eccles hit shortstop Caitlin Eynon with her 0-2 pitch to drive in a run. Eccles got the final two outs of the inning and pitched a scoreless seventh to close out the win, which is what matters most, but her performance against Mackay and Eynon did not exactly showcase the strategic merit of the mid-plate-appearance pitching change.

Game 3

Monday’s contest began with dueling homers. Queens second baseman Samaria Benitez led off with a walk, Ayuri Shimano followed with a single, and Queens captain Ashton Lansdell hit one high and deep beyond the center field wall. Then, in the bottom half of the inning, Natsuki Yonetani hit a fly ball that was scored a triple (the league’s first!) even though it ricocheted off the glove of Amira Hondras as she attempted to make the play in right. Then Benites, the Heights captain, followed the trend set by the opposing captain by launching a home run of her own.

Here we’re going to jump ahead to the third, partly because there’s a lot to get to in this game, but also because the broadcast was having nonstop technical difficulties due to a power issue at the stadium, which caused the feed to cut out every few minutes — so skipping around feels in harmony with the vibe of this game.

Eynon led off the inning with a solo homer, capping a strong series at the plate in which she went 5-for-9 with two walks. A walk from Hondras and a double from Villareal put runners on second and third. First baseman Sarah Edwards seemed to line out to Heights first baseman Kylee Lahners, who fielded the ball and quickly threw to second to double off Villareal. But it turned out Lahners was doing some acting. Even Henley admitted postgame that the ball hit the ground, meaning not only was Edwards safe, but there was no force at second. Unfortunately, Villareal fell for the bit and, thinking she was out, began to leave the field. By the time she realized what was happening, the Heights were able to recover and tag her out. But instead of two outs and a runner at third, the Queens had runners on the corners with one out. Davis hit an RBI single and Benitez took a pitch to the back of her batting helmet to load the bases. Shimano stepped to the plate and watched two pitches before sending the third pitch she saw to the opposite field for a grand slam. The inning concluded without further scoring, but the six-run outburst wound up being fairly representative of how the rest of the game would go.

Remember how Benitez got beaned in the head? I hope you do; we talked about it in the last paragraph. Anyway, her day was about to get even more painful. With two outs and shortstop Emi Saiki at the plate, the broadcast feed cut out. When it returned a minute or two later, Saiki was on first, Madison Willan had advanced to third, and Benitez was down in shallow right field clutching her knee. It seemed to be a non-contact injury as Benitez attempted to move out of the way so Edwards could make a play on the ball. She was eventually taken off the field on a golf cart without any more information provided on the broadcast.

We now move ahead to the bottom of the fifth. After tacking on two additional runs in the top half of the inning, the Queens led 11-6. That’s a pretty comfortable lead with just an inning and a half left to play, right? Wrong. Shimano, the hero of the Queens half of the third, took over on the mound in the bottom of the fourth after Roche, who started the game on short rest, gave up a one-out RBI double to O’Sullivan. Shimano got out of the inning without allowing any more runs to score, but that trend would not continue. The Heights came all the way back to tie the game at 11, and all it took was a five-run fifth. Willan led off with a walk, followed by a Saiki single. Then Yonetani hit into a double play. Oh yeah, all of the runs scored after there were already two outs. The Queens intentionally walked Benites to put runners on the corners, then left fielder London Studer hit a bases-clearing double. Shimano hit O’Sullivan with a pitch before Lahners cleared the bases even more thoroughly than Studer because that’s how home runs work. The Lahners homer completed the comeback and Perez grounded out to end the inning.

Sato, who was fresh off getting roughed up for five runs in Game 2, entered the game in the sixth to pitch in relief of Shimano. Surely this also ended in disaster, right? Well, in her first plate appearance of the evening, Sato got a whiff, a foul tip, and weak grounder foul before making a tricky basket catch on a popup with the baserunner bearing down.

Signs pointed to Big Game Sato showing out in Game 3. She finished the inning by striking out Willan and getting a groundball out from Saiki.

With Eccles on to pitch the top of the seventh, the Queens hit peak patience at the plate with the following sequence: Right fielder Maggie Foxx was hit by a pitch, Shimano singled to right, Lansdell took a four-pitch walk, Mackay was hit by a pitch (Foxx scored), Sato hit a sacrifice fly that scored Shimano (see below for the reception Sato got upon returning to the dugout), Hondras flied out to center, left fielder Diana Ibarra took a four-pitch walk, Edwards worked a five-pitch walk (Lansdell scored), Davis worked a seven-pitch walk (Mackay scored), and Foxx flied out to right.

Now, all of those walks and hit-by-pitches probably make it seem like Eccles was so wild that the Queens shouldn’t have even been tempted to swing, but several of the pitches were close enough to make both Eccles and Benites show visible frustration at not getting the call. (They had an argument for one or two, but there were also a couple close calls that went their way, so it would be disingenuous to imply Eccles was being squeezed). By the end of the frame, the Queens were back up 15-11, and Sato was back on the mound to close it out. She got a fly out from Yonetani, and Benites to whiffed at a pitch in on her hands for strike three. Sato then allowed a double down the right field line to Studer, but she battled back to get O’Sullivan to pop out to Edwards in foul territory and send the Queens to the championship.

Scenes From the Postgame Celebration

As celebrations began for the Queens, Benitez was brought back onto the field in a wheelchair with her knee wrapped to be with her team. When the Queens took their group photo, they placed the crown they use for home run celebrations on her head.

Sato was named player of the game, and as is customary in the U.S., she received a Gatorade bath from her teammates. In the postgame press conference, she told reporters it was her first. Despite being a multi-time MVP of the Women’s World Cup for Team Japan, the Gatorade bath has not transcended to international notoriety. In the moments before it happened, it was clear Sato has no idea what was coming, but shout out to the kind person who got Sato’s interpreter out of there just before splash down.

In youth sports, it’s common to see a postgame handshake line between opponents, but the practice usually falls by the wayside once athletes reach the pros. In the WPBL, the handshake line was replaced with a hug line. The Queens crossed the field to the Heights dugout to offer what comfort they could to a New York team feeling the emotions of a fresh loss.

“Everybody wants to win, and I’ve been on the other side of that loss before [and] it hurts.” Lansdell told reporters during the postgame press conference. “They played their hearts out […] and we had to go show them respect.”

But the emotions didn’t stop flowing once the players left the field. When it was Sato’s turn to speak during the press conference, she said through her interpreter, “Today, when I found out that I was going to pitch, I was honestly scared,” but she drew strength from the support she got from her coaches and teammates. As she put it during her on-field interview, “When my moment came and I stepped onto the mound, I saw my teammates’ faces, and I felt like as long as I have all of them behind me, I could give everything I have.”

As Sato spoke of being scared, Lansdell looked over and put a hand on her shoulder to reaffirm that support. But there was also a note of surprise on Lansdell’s face. It can be difficult to believe that someone like Sato, a legend of women’s baseball, could experience the type of fear that would make her want to run from something she’s worked toward her whole life. It’s a useful reminder that even the greats need a pat on the back sometimes.

The next test for the Queens will pit them against the Firebells in the Championship Series, beginning Wednesday night at 6:00 p.m. ET. Most are likely giving an edge to the Firebells, but the Queens believe they can give the Firebells a fight. As Lansdell told reporters, “I think we became a better team in these last three games.”

Yesterday’s Queens are not today’s Queens. Today’s Queens are even stronger.