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Mathews wins another district title
By TIM CLEVELAND
BAZETTA
Despite the heat, Tuesday’s Division IV district championship game against Bristol proved to be no sweat for Mathews’ Cheyenne Eggens.
Only a sophomore, she pitched her team to state last season and has it in position to do so again. Eggens pitched a second consecutive one-hitter and struck out 12, giving her 28 Ks in the last two games as Mathews defeated the Panthers, 3-0, at Candlelite Knolls.
Mathews won the rubber match after splitting two regular-season games against its Northeastern Athletic Conference rival.
“This whole season has been a battle between us,” Eggens said. “We won, then they won. This was our time. It was finally our time to win again. We just came out and knew we had to focus.”
The victory gave the Mustangs their fourth district title in a row.
“Chey went to school very fresh this morning,” Mathews coach Jim Nicula said. “Got a good night’s sleep. When you play that kind of a rival, you’re not going to get the Ks like you normally do.”
Eggens and Bristol’s Ashlyn Slusher each pitched zeroes for the first five innings, but the Bristol defense fell apart in the sixth.
With one out, Jenna Siefert bunted, but the throw was dropped by second baseman Amanda McClellan, who was covering first. Tabby Granelly followed with another bunt back to the mound, but Slusher threw into the dirt for another error. Maddie Williams hit a sacrifice fly to plate Siefert and Jessica Marsico singled home Granelly. Maddi Grimes lofted a fly ball to center, but Lindsey Elza dropped it for the third error of the inning. The miscue brought home Marsico to give Mathews (22-7) an insurmountable advantage.
“One bad inning. You’re not going to win with errors,” Bristol coach Debbie Rowles said. “We had one bad inning that cost us the game.”
Slusher took the hard-luck loss for Bristol (17-3). She allowed just three hits with zero earned runs and struck out five. Both coaches praised the freshman.
“She pitched a phenomenal game,” Rowles said. “She depends on the defenders behind her. For a freshman she did a nice job.”
“Slusher pitched really good. She had her high fastball and her rise ball working,” Nicula said.
There are five seniors on Mathews’ roster. Granelly, one of the five, was flying high in being a perfect four for four in winning district titles in her career, while Nicula said they are the backbone of the team.
“It’s like an undescribable feeling going four years in a row,” Granelly said. “Hopefully my team goes as far as we need to go.”
Advancing to the Kent regional, which starts next Wednesday at 5 p.m., Nicula said no matter who his team plays, they’ll be prepared.