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Canfield bats succeed against Mathews ace Eggens
By Steve WILAJ
LIBERTY
Early in Thursday’s matchup against Mathews pitcher Cheyenne Eggens, the Canfield High School softball team quickly realized what the South Florida commit brought to the table.
“We saw she throws some nice heat and has a good off-speed pitch,” Cardinals shortstop Rachel Tinkey said. “So it came down to finding a pitch early in the count that we could get our hands through and make good contact with.”
Thirteen hits later, it’s safe to say Canfield executed that gameplan.
Keyed by a five-run fifth inning, the Cardinals downed the Mustangs, 11-6, in a Mahoning Valley Invitational contest at Liberty Township Park.
Canfield (15-4) roughed up the Mathews’ ace for nine earned runs as Tinkey led the way with a single, double and home run.
“We came in the one inning where we started hitting and I said ‘Look, she’s hittable,’” Canfield coach Ray Melewski said. “We just couldn’t let her take the bat out of our hands and had to put the ball in play. That’s what we did.”
Mathews (17-4) took a 4-3 lead into the fifth, but the Cardinals got going with Maura Kennedy’s leadoff double.
Kennedy scored on an error before Amelia Manenti notched a sacrifice fly and Darby Cockrell recorded an RBI groundout. Marina Sturgeon then capped the outburst with a double that scored two runs and put Canfield ahead 8-3.
The Cardinals followed that frame with a three-run sixth inning keyed by Tinkey’s RBI double, Kara Rothbauer’s RBI single and another Cockrell run-scoring groundout.
“The offense was contagious,” Melewski said. “Once one started hitting, they kept falling.”
Kennedy, Rothbauer and Manenti each finished with two hits for Canfield. Meanwhile, Jenna Siefert’s three hits and two RBIs paced Mathews.
The Mustangs took a 4-2 lead after the first inning on Siefert’s run-scoring bunt hit, RBI singles by Meredith Grimes and Nicole Watts and a suicide squeeze by Eggens.
But they managed just two more runs after that outburst — a Siefert RBI single and Grimes sacrifice fly in the fifth inning.
“I thought we executed well in the first inning and had them on the ropes,” Mathews coach Jim Nicula said. “We just had a couple bad innings where they pieced some good hits together with some errors.”
Nicula added that he wants his team — which finished with seven hits — to take a certain mindset from this matchup into the upcoming Division IV tournament.
“We need to have at-bats every inning like Canfield had,” he said. “Every time their kids came up to the plate, it was with a purpose of making something positive happen and we don’t always have that.”
After a rough first inning, Canfield starter Bridget Durkin settled in to quiet the Mathews bats.
She earned the victory as she allowed six runs on seven hits in four innings.