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Harrison Central falls short in OVAC semifinal

WHEELING — Veteran players always seem to come up huge in big games. Such was the case Tuesday night during an OVAC Tom Bechtel Class 4A softball tournament semifinal.

With No. 2 seed St. Clairsville already leading third-seeded Harrison Central 4-2 in the bottom of the fourth inning, third baseman Bree Bennington gave the Red Devils some additional insurance runs. The senior slugged a bases-clearing double that bumped the count to 7-2 and would end up being the deciding blow in a 7-4 victory on Lisa’s Field at the J.B. Chambers I-470 Youth Sports Complex.

The win not only propelled St. Clairsville (11-5) to the championship game opposite top-seeded Oak Glen Friday at 6:45 p.m., but it gave them the rubber-game as the teams had split a pair of earlier contests.

“That was absolutely a clutch hit. She really came through when we needed it,” first-year St. Clairsville head coach Rob Gallentine said of Bennington. “She was focused. She’s hitting around .500 for the season.

“Our two seniors, Bree and Taylor (Gallentine) have been there before,” he said of experiencing an OVAC championship. “They were major contributors on an OVAC championship team as freshmen. We talked about how their experiences could help these younger girls. Bree came through and I’m tickled to death she did.”

The Huskies were their own worst enemy as they stranded nine runners on base and made a couple of costly errors.

“We stranded a lot of baserunners and made too many mistakes to beat a good team like St. Clairsville,” Harrison Central head coach Darrin Young assessed. “We didn’t take advantage of certain opportunities when they were presented to us.

“In order to win championships, you’ve got to play fundamentally-sound softball,” he added. “We did it at times tonight, but we did get it for seven innings.”

After Harrison Central left the bags loaded in the top of the first, St. Clairsville went to work.

Taylor Gallentine and Hannah Thoburn drew back-to-back leadoff walks from Harrison Central starter, and loser, Kaylee Elliott. Bennington sacrificed both runners up a base before Alexis Hines bunted down the first base line. Gallentine scored easily as the ball slowly rolled to first baseman Jenna Young who tagged Hines. However, Thoburn never stopped chugging around third and slid in safely as the ball was jarred loose from catcher Madison Young for a 2-0 advantage.

The Huskies evened things in their second at-bat when Sarah Touville singled up the middle with two outs to score Jenna Young and Lexi Ferguson.

St. Clairsville re-gained the lead in the third as Thoburn singled to center leading off. Bennington singled to right and when the ball got past the rightfielder, the speedy Thoburn circled the bags. Bennington was eventually tagged out at the plate, but Jenna Jaskowiak’s two-out base hit back through the box plated Dekotah Namack for a 4-2 margin.

Harrison Central cut the deficit to 7-4 in the sixth when Britton Positano launched a two-run homer over the fence in deep left-center.

“The second half of our season starts tomorrow I told them,” Young said. “I know this one hurts, but we’ve got to shake it off and get ready for sectionals.”

Thoburn laced three singles and scored three times to pace St. C. Gallentine had a pair of singles and two runs scored.

Jaskowiak fanned three, walked just one and scattered seven hits to seven different Huskies.

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