Saturday, May 23, 2015
Nordonia hangs on to win Division I district title
By ED PUSKAS
SOLON
Season-ending defeats can be tough to take. But the Howland High School softball team’s 3-2 loss to Nordonia in a Division I district final Friday at Roxbury Field seemed more bittersweet than bitter.
First-year coach Melissa Starkey said that’s because of how far the Tigers came from the moment they first unpacked their bats and gloves over the winter.
The Tigers lost after battling back from a 3-0 deficit. Howland’s Mackenzie Maze — representing the potential tying run — got as far as third base with two outs in the top of the seventh inning. Nordonia pitcher Hannah Stroe then got the final out on a ground ball.
And yet the mood was upbeat afterward. The Tigers, you see, couldn’t have envisioned getting to Solon just a few months ago.
Starkey admitted as much in reflecting on the day she and her players first got together.
“I’ll be honest with you ... the first day that I walked in with this crew, I immediately — when we finished up — I walked down to the athletic director’s office and said, ‘What are you getting me into?’” Starkey said. “I said, ‘You know what? We’re going to do what we can to get these kids playing and we worked and we worked and we worked.
“I am so proud of where we are today. I don’t have anything to complain about.”
Starkey credited the leadership of seniors Hannah Burke, Monica Kotyuk, Lexi Ross, Morgan Remsey and Emily Kleiner for the Tigers’ turnaround from that first meeting.
“I have five wonderful seniors who have really bought into what we’re doing and it has trickled down to my underclassmen,” Starkey said.
Burke, Howland’s top pitcher, agreed the Tigers didn’t see a district final appearance coming.
“Especially with the past coaches we’ve had,” Burke said. “Not that they weren’t positive, but [Starkey] makes us a lot stronger mentally and physically.[She’s] more demanding, yes, and I think that helped us a lot.”
That toughness showed as Howland (18-11) chipped away at Nordonia’s lead. Remsey began the comeback with an opposite-field triple to lead off the fifth inning. Remsey scored when Kotyuk delivered a one-out, infield single off Stroe’s glove to make it 3-1.
Burke, who committed to West Virginia Tech over the winter, pulled a magic act to escape trouble in the bottom of the inning and keep the Tigers in the game.
Burke hit Julia Groff and walked Jolene Teller to start the inning. Holly Groff then lined a soft single to left to load the bases.
But Burke retired Kendall Becker on a first-pitch pop-up to shortstop Sara Price. Then Natalie Spadaro also went after the first pitch and grounded to third, where Remsey fielded the ball and fired a strike to Kotyuk for a force at the plate. Burke escaped the jam when Stroe hit a pop-up to ReAnn Litz at second base.
“I was actually telling myself a quote that I always say — ‘Inch-by-inch, play-by-play until it’s finished,’ ” said Burke, who added that a post-game talk with Starkey after a rough outing in Thursday’s district semifinal against Twinsburg (a 14-7 Howland win) and a steady diet of rap and hip-hop music Friday helped her prepare for Nordonia.
Howland got within a run in the sixth. Ross lined a one-out single to center field, but was erased on a fielder’s choice when Burke grounded to short on the next pitch. But the Tigers’ Hannah Kowach crushed a run-scoring double to the fence in left-center field to cut Nordonia’s lead to 3-2.
Maze reached with one out in the Howland seventh when she beat out a dribbler in front of the plate. Kotyuk then laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt and Maze advanced to third on a wild pitch moments later, but Stroe retired Leah Pollifrone on a grounder to second for the game’s final out.