PICKERINGTON – As the old scoreboard at Riverfront Stadium used to say, “Walks will haunt.”
The Danville softball team couldn’t overcome the free bases, falling to Newark Catholic 11-10 in a Division IV regional semifinal game on Wednesday, May 26, at Pickerington Central.
The Blue Devils walked 11 batters and hit four others in their sixth regional semifinal game in six seasons.
“It was a bad time to have double-digit walks for the first time all season long,” Danville coach Charlie Duncan said. “And four errors on top of that. There’s no excuse; we just gotta be better defensively.”
Taryn Mickley hit a two-run home run in the sixth inning to pull the Blue Devils within a run. She finished with three hits, five RBIs and two runs on the day.
NC’s Maddie Brothers tossed her first 1-2-3 inning of the day in the seventh to hold off Danville.
“This is a team that came in with one senior, two juniors, playing in the KMAC — one of the toughest conferences in the state of Ohio — and we won 20 ballgames,” Duncan said. “If you said we were going to do that (coming into the season), I would take that every day all day. I’m so dang proud of this team and the way we came through the season and battled adversity. They never gave up.”
Emily Weckesser had three hits, Keaura Schilling had two hits and two runs, Jaylyn Smith scored three runs and Maddy Wine drove in three runs to lead Danville.
Both teams featured five freshmen in their starting lineups, with Broegan Staats, Weckesser, Taylor Price, Grace Gronberg and Smith in Danville’s lineup; and Ava Heffley, Avery Nagel, Kylie Gibson, Kami Diaz and Maris Knowlton in Newark Catholic’s.
“That is a power right there,” Newark Catholic assistant coach Rob Smith said about the Devils. “We could have folded early, but we stayed the course and continued to put pressure on them. It was just timely hitting and great defense when we needed to.”
Wine, the lone senior on the Devils’ roster, started and lasted one-plus innings. She was pulled when NC loaded the bases with no outs in the first inning on two walks and a hit.
“Maddy Wine has been the glue that has held us together all year long,” Duncan said. “She’s not only a leader, she’s a coach. She’s helped Grace along to get her ready for this situation and to pass the torch to her next year. Maddy’s definitely one that we’re going to miss. If you tell me that I’m only allowed to have one senior, that’s the one that I’m picking every day.”
Gronberg entered but couldn’t quell the rally as the Green Wave put seven runs on the board on two hits, an error and six walks. The big blow came when Madisyn Sheppherd one-hopped the right field wall to drive in three runs.
“I was gonna go back to Maddy too,” Duncan said. “We went with Grace for a different look. I told her I was gonna go back to her, but I didn’t have the right opportunity.”
But Danville responded in the bottom half with five runs of their own to tie it up. Wine came through with a two-run single to cap the scoring after Smith and Sophie Snively each had RBI hits and Taryn Mickley hit a sacrifice fly.
“We were down, but we came out in that second inning and they didn’t hang their heads,” Duncan said. “I was proud of them. I told them that this wasn’t our best game (and) I’m not gonna dwell on that now.”
The game remained tied until a Mickley base hit with one out in the fourth scored Schilling, who led off the inning with a single.
But a two-run single by Gibson, followed by an error that plated two more runs in the fifth inning ended up being the difference.
Gibson and Nagel scored two runs each for the Green Wave, who had just four hits for the game. Brothers allowed five earned runs and struck out three in the complete-game win.
Newark Catholic faces Peebles in a regional final at noon on Saturday, back at Pickerington Central.
