STATE SOFTBALL From Firestone Stadium

No debate: John Glenn High coach Randy Larrick said there was no talk about pitching around Jenna Modic when she led off for Poland in the seventh. “She still got on,” Larrick said of Modic’s first-pitch double that hit the right-field fence about two feet from the top. “If we had intentionally walked her, she’d have been on and that wouldn’t have made any difference. There was no debate — we were just hoping that we could get a ground out or a fly ball.” In the third inning, Modic hit a solo homer to right-center field. In the fifth inning with first base open, the sophomore third baseman was walked on four pitches to load the bases. She then scored Poland’s fourth run. Before Thursday’s game, Modic was hitting .485 with a slugging percentage of .723. Modic said she went to the plate trying not think about “if they were going to try and pitch around me. I just focused in on the pitch that I wanted and I hit it.”

Rough fifth: The Muskies turned three hits and a walk into four runs in the top of the fifth inning. Trailing 1-0, Sydney Brown walked and took second base on a wild pitch. Trish Klass singled to score pinch-runner Erin Shade and took second on the throw home. Shortstop Kalie Benson fielded Rachel Townsend’s grounder and threw wildly to first base. Townsend ended up at third base and courtesy runner Hannah Gregory scored when Modic fielded Lindsay Buchanan’s bunt and was unable to tag Gregory sneaking past her. Jenna Shingary’s two-out single scored Buchanan for a 4-1 lead. “That was a crazy inning, they seemed to have people on second and third that whole inning,” Poland coach Reid Lamport said. Modic admitted that the Muskies stole the momentum from her homer “but it didn’t stay there the whole game. They thought that they had us, but we went back into the dugout and said that it wasn’t over yet. We just came back hard.”

Ace: Poland pitcher Erin Gabriel credited the Muskies for laying off her riseball so “I came with my change-up.” Lamport said, “I was real proud of how [Gabriel] came back, she threw more change-ups today than she has all season, and that is a credit to their hitters.”

Tom Williams