Norway All-Star Chloe Chartier slides safely into second base as Gladstone’s Ava Goodman attempts to make the play Thursday evening during a Michigan District 10 tournament clash in Escanaba. Gladstone dominated the action, blanking Norway in a 10-0 victory and advancing to face Escanaba for the tournament title. (Todd Rose/Escanaba Daily Press photo )

ESCANABA — The Gladstone All-Stars punched their ticket to the Michigan District 10 softball championship game against Escanaba by blanking the Norway All-Stars 10-0 in Escanaba on Thursday afternoon.

The game came to a close in the bottom of the fifth via the mercy rule when Gladstone’s Malia Quigley batted in Emma Trombley and Cami Runne on a full-count hit.

With the victory, the Gladstone girls earned a shot at revenge against Escanaba, which beat them 10-5 on Wednesday.

“I think when we went into yesterday’s game against Escanaba, you could see everybody was tense. The vibes were super tense,” said Gladstone coach Tasi Martinez. “So, for (Friday), we’re loose. We’re ready. We had a fun game tonight. We hit the ball well, we played good team softball and that’s the same vibe we’re going into tomorrow with.”

Backing up the scoring on the Gladstone offense was pitching and defense. Lauren Pare started and went through four innings for the team and finished with 11 strikeouts. Tianna Reynolds threw the last inning and had two strikeouts in her one inning of play.

Norway’s Kendall Burklund looks upward for a pop up off the bat off Gladstone’s Hope Reath during Thursday night’s all-star softball contest in Escanaba. Burklund made the catch to record the out. (Todd Rose/Escanaba Daily Press photo)

“Lauren pitched a fantastic game yesterday, and we made some adjustments with where our catcher was setting up. Our pitch calling, we changed how we called our pitches,” said coach Martinez. “Those girls just went out there and delivered. I can always count on them to go on the mound and deliver. They show day in and day out why I put my trust in them.”

The good news for Gladstone, aside from qualifying for the title game itself, is they will have their full arsenal of arms to choose from against Escanaba.

“I did not burn any pitchers today,” said coach Martinez. “So, I can throw both of them (Friday).”

Kendall Burklund pitched the whole game for Norway and collected six strikeouts.

For the season they were able to put together, coach Nate Burklund is happy with the progress the Norway girls made.

“Our league ended late. Some of our girls were in league championship and to get a team like this — our girls don’t travel together, so we had about a week and a half to prep,” Burklund said. “We’ve got good players, and getting together for that week, we had a lot of fun, and we did nice things in practice. Some of those things correlated today, and some didn’t.”

Coach Burklund praised Pare’s pitching as one of the things that kept the Norway girls off balance.

Defensively, the team had several nice plays with the best being a double play in the fourth inning where Chloe Chartier made an impressive snag on a line drive to get Tati Martinez out before making the throw to shortstop Lilly Tomlanovich covering second to get Molly Matthews out and retire the inning.

“(Chartier) was on top of it, aware of who was on and where the base runners were,” coach Burklund said. “That was a good play. It was a fun season and fun with these girls. Hopefully, we continue to improve, and maybe we get together and get to some travel tournaments together.”

Gladstone and Escanaba were slated to face off Friday for the district championship in Escanaba. If necessary, a second game was set follow afterward.

Daily Press staff writer Todd Rose can be contacted at trose@dailypress.net.