Big Red’s run ends in district final
A couple of costly errors too much for Steubenville to overcome
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CADIZ -- The Big Red softball team battled through adversity all season to reach the district final.
Unfortunately, that is where Steubenville's run ended as some self-inflicted adversity was simply too much to overcome.
Big Red, which had an early lead in Thursday's Division II, East 1 District Championship game against Indian Valley at the beautiful new Harrison Central softball field and had been playing clean defense on its nine-game winning streak to get to that point, made some uncharacteristic mistakes in the field -- and the Braves turned them into runs to take a 4-3 victory.
"It hurts to get to this point and be that close, my heart bleeds for my seniors," Big Red head coach Gus DiMarzio said. "When we lost six in a row (in the middle of the season) they could have packed it in, but they wouldn't allow it and we got this far.
"That was probably the worst game we've played in the last 10, and you don't want to do that (in the district final).
"I tip my hat to Indian Valley, (Braves coach) Dusty (Braun) is a great guy and great coach and they're a well-coached team. We just didn't make plays and they did."
After back-to-back singles to start off the top of first by Jules King and Maggi Cucarese produced a 1-0 lead and Gia Bowman racing home on a passed ball with the bases loaded in the second made it 2-0 for the No. 10 seed Big Red (14-7), No. 2 seed Indian Valley (22-6) answered in the bottom of the second.
A Madison Monte RBI double made it a one-run game, then, after a Hailey Kerns single, a throw home trying to hold Monte at third skipped away to the wall and allowed the Braves senior to tie the game.
An inning later, an error with one out allowed Gabby Meade to reach, and she eventually scored the go-ahead run. Then, a second Big Red error in the inning, this time with two outs, allowed the Braves to make it 4-2, a third potential run being tagged out at the plate to end the inning, but the damage was done as the fourth run proved to be the difference.
"When we needed to make plays in the field, we had a couple miscues ... you can't give runs up like that in the district final, and that is my fault, I'm the coach," DiMarzio said. "That's the tough part (about the tournament), if you make mistakes, there is no tomorrow. You don't get two out of three or anything like that, you have to win the day and we didn't win the day."
Big Red ace Jules King, who was charged with just one earned run -- the first one -- recovered from there as she struck out five batters in the next two innings to give her team a chance to come back.
King finished with 11 punchouts in the game to end what was a stellar junior season for the Tiffin University recruit.
"We probably haven't seen a pitcher in two weeks that's even comparable to Jules," Braun said. "It took us a time through the order to adjust to the speed, adjust to the momentum.
"We rose to the occasion when it got tight."
Steubenville, as it had all season, fought back, getting within a run in the top of the fifth when King legged out a double and scored on Paige Matteson's RBI single and the Big Red defense cut down a run at the plate in the bottom of the sixth to stay within a swing of the bat away from tying it.
That, however, was the last run of the game as Indian Valley's Mia Rose worked 1-2-3 innings in the sixth and seventh to slam the door shut. She also had double digit strikeouts, finishing with 10, to help lead her team to next week's regional tournament.
"I have a lot of respect for Gus, he does it the right way," Braun said. "I give Steubenville a lot of credit, they gave us everything we could handle."
SENIOR FAREWELL
Six seniors saw their high school careers in Crimson and Black come to and on Thursday. They were Abby Bottegal, Amaria Swearingen, Cucarese, Caitlyn Lukacena, Adrianna Brown and Gracie Bowman.
"My seniors are all really good kids that are going to go on to do really good things in life," DiMarzio said. "They are great Big Red kids. They never quit and they rattled off nine in a row. This team could have fallen apart when we lost those six games but they didn't let it. I'm very proud of them.
"We have a good core of kids that will be back next year and I hope that we'll be in this game again next year and be on the other side of it."
OHSAA Division II
East 1 District Championship
At Harrison Central High School
No. 2 Indian Valley, No. 10 Big Red 3
Big Red 1-1-0 0-1-0 0 - 3 4 3
Indian Valley 0-2-2 0-0-0 x - 4 5 1
BIG RED (14-7): King (LP, 6IP, 4R, 1ER, 5H, 11K, 1BB) and Swearengen. King S, D; Cucarese S, RBI; Matteson S, RBI.
INDIAN VALLEY (22-6): Rose (WP, CG, 3R, 1ER, 4H, 10K, 1BB, 2HBP) and Meade. Rose S; Meade D; Dryden S; Monte D, RBI; Love S, RBI.