Champion bottles up Berkshire

The Flashes advanced to Saturday's regional final.
By JOHN BASSETTI
VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF
MASSILLON -- In the two games in which Champion beat Burton Berkshire by a combined score of 6-2 this season, the Golden Flashes had only six hits.
That doesn't leave much room for error, so defense and baserunning have to be sharp.
In Champion's 4-2 win over the Badgers Wednesday in the Division III regional semifinal at Genshaft Field, fielding wasn't outstanding, especially in the early innings.
So Champion relied upon alert baserunning -- and Berkshire's mental mistakes -- to walk away with a regional championship game appointment, Saturday at 5 p.m.
In its 2-0 win over Berkshire on May 6, Champion had only three hits. On Wednesday, the Golden Flashes (19-6) only had three hits, including a double by Jaclyn Carpenter that put Champion ahead, 2-0, in the second inning.
"When you get this far, you've got to take advantage of any little thing they'll give you because runs come hard," Cheryl Weaver said of the second and fifth innings.
Champion also scored once in the third inning.
Early lead
In the second, Carpenter's double scored Emily Hayes and Jackie Knepp. The runs were facilitated by some confusion on the part of Berkshire pitcher Sarah Zeleznikar.
With two outs, Knepp hit a grounder back to the mound. Zeleznikar turned and threw to her third baseman in an attempt to get Hayes running to third base, believing it would be the second out. However, there was no force out situation, so Hayes stayed put and Knepp reached first on a fielder's choice.
"That was kind of a weird play, although I believe it was indicated that there were two outs," Berkshire coach Dave List said of the situation.
"I make it a point to yell out the outs as they come, but the plate umpire was giving a one-run signal and that's what 'Z' went off of and that's why she tried to go to third instead of taking the out at first."
Carpenter's double followed, although she was thrown out trying to stretch the hit into a triple.
Making it close
Berkshire (19-9) pulled within 3-2 in the fourth inning on an inside-the-park home run by Danielle Finkler and Jil Matlock's hit that scored Michelle Meyers.
The Golden Flashes finished the scoring when Carpenter stole home in the fifth on a delay.
"That's kind of a design play when you send the girl [Katie Saluga] to jog and see if they'll bite on it. Some teams won't bite on it and let you take second; some will watch until you're about right there [second base] and then try to gun you down. Others get too involved in trying to run back and the girls know that you've got to stay in the rundown long enough to score."
Because Champion only had three hits against the Badgers in their first meeting, Weaver said she was a little scared coming in to Wednesday's game.
"We were facing the same pitcher [Zeleznikar] and those two runs [on May 6] were a little hard to come."
List gave credit to his girls for battling back.
"We actually did a pretty good job of battling and getting runners on base and came up with a couple big hits in the inning we scored [fourth]. But you can't dig yourselves in a hole. We made some mental mistakes and paid for it."
bassetti@vindy.com