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Hubbard's Jarvis outduels Price, Howland
By charles grove
hubbard
Two of the area’s top pitchers were on their game as Hubbard edged Howland 2-1 in Division II sectional play on their home field.
Hubbard’s Addy Jarvis and Howland’s Sara Price combined for 17 strikeouts and just five walks.
Jarvis was especially on her game, giving up only two hits in seven innings, allowing no earned runs and striking out seven in the process.
The fifth-seeded Eagles move on to play in Alliance today against fourth-seeded Marlington at 4:30 p.m.
Howland got on the board in the top of the second after a fielding error allowed leadoff hitter Reann Litz to reach. After moving to third with two outs, Litz went home on a dropped third strike to put the Tigers in front.
Hubbard came back the next half inning. Annie Zagorec singled and reached second on an error before Ruth Sandberg connected for an RBI single to right field, tying the score at one all.
The Eagles came back again in the third after Mikayla Smith led off with a walk and stole second. Jarvis then knocked a single to center field and while it looked anything but at the time, that was the game-winning hit.
“I just go up there and I’m looking for the first strike,” Jarvis said. “I almost always swing at the first pitch. If it’s there I’m swinging.”
Howland had their best chances to respond in the middle innings. The Tigers got two on in the fourth and another in scoring position in the fifth but couldn’t get a timely hit when needed — an issue the Tigers have been battling all year long.
“We just couldn’t come through when we needed to,” Howland head coach Melissa Starkey said. “We just can’t get over that hump. We’ve been right there all season. We’ve been close, close, close but haven’t gotten over it. We had runners on and had chances to score but unfortunately we weren’t able to string together a few back-to-back-to-back hits.”
Howland had their chances after Hubbard failed to push across an insurance run in the fifth of sixth innings, but Jarvis was able to induce four easy ground balls over the final two innings and struck out Mackenzie Maze with a changeup to end the game.
“The majority of my strikeouts were with my changeup today,” Jarvis said. “And then I was able to get ground balls where my defense helped me out as well.”
Jarvis said Howland’s pressure with runners on base combined with a tournament setting didn’t bother her team since they’ve been in pressure situations throughout this regular season.
“This didn’t feel much different because we’ve played a lot of extra-inning games all year so we’re pretty good under pressure.”
And despite coming up empty inning after inning, Price said her team made an effort to keep spirits high in the dugout.
“Most of us just stay positive as long as we can,” Price said. “Instead of bringing others down we want to bring them up. We have to stay positive or else the whole team will come down and then one run will turn into 10 runs each inning.”
Hubbard head coach Ken Miller said his team’s mindset against Howland was to simply play their game and the same will go for today’s game in Alliance.
“We know if we play our way and play to our strengths we’re going to be ok,” Miller said.