The Road to East Peoria: Top-seed eliminates Lady Falcons
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[An up-and-down season for Elverado High School's girls softball team came crashing to a halt Tuesday at the Trico Class 1A regional.
The Lady Falcons, 11-18, were eliminated by top-seeded Marissa-Coulterville 9-0 in the semifinals.
Wednesday, Trico and New Athens determine the second championship game advancer.
"I hated for the season to end this way," Lady Falcons coach Donette Wheatley said. "At times we played so well. We won our tournament, beat Du Quoin and played Carterville to a 2-1 game. And then, other times-like today, we struggled."
M-C scored once in the second inning against EHS hurler Corrine Wilson and built the lead to 7-0 before the freshman was relieved by Kelsi Teague in the sixth.
Sam Hicks had three of the Elverado hits with Chelsea Cochran and Teague also hitting safely.
Tuesday's loss ended the careers of Lady Falcon seniors Kelsey Tuthill, Courtney Morse and Rachel Hunziker. All three were key performers on last year's sweet 16 squad. Tuthill is a four-year starter.
"I am losing three great seniors," Wheatley said. "Its going to be very hard to replace them. We will really miss those girls.>