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Champion, N. Falls advance to district final
Flashes rout Brookfield as Tigers edge Kirtland
By charles grove
leavittsburg
The Champion and Newton Falls softball teams qualified for today’s Division III district final in very different ways.
Champion, the defending state champions, took care of Brookfield 10-0 in six innings while Newton Falls came from behind to beat Kirtland 2-1 in dramatic fashion.
Mckenzie Zigmont (19-1) struck out eight hitters and had the game-ending single to bring home the final two runs in Champion’s victory.
For Newton Falls, Jenna Ballas was the star. She struck out nine, hit a game-tying home run and pitched masterfully out of a seventh-inning jam.
In the first game, Champion took no time to settle in. A leadoff single by Molly Williams was followed by two infield hits, two fielder’s choices and a passed ball. Carli Swipas laced a single to right field and in the blink of an eye it was 5-0 Golden Flashes.
Champion (25-4) added on in the third with one run and Megan Turner hit an opposite-field home run in the fifth to make it 7-0. Amber Ricci hit an RBI triple in the sixth to bring home Williams before Zigmont’s two-RBI base hit ended the game.
Champion head coach Cheryl Weaver said that statistically her team this year is very similar to last year’s appropriately-named state champions.
“When I look at the stats from last year to this year, we are the same team,” Weaver said. “This team has the highest fielding percentage of any team I’ve ever had go to state. But you’ve still got to play the games and it keeps getting harder from here on out.”
In the nightcap, fans were treated to a pitcher’s duel as only one runner made it to scoring position in the first three innings.
Kirtland struck first in the fourth when Hallie Ward doubled to right field and was brought home on a single two batters later by her sister Lindsay to put the Hornets up 1-0.
The Tigers looked to answer back in the fifth when Natalie Georgalas and Kelli Harrah reached scoring position with two outs but Tara Backherms popped out to the pitcher the first pitch to end the threat.
Newton Falls head coach Bill Pelyak said his team was worrying as the team began running out of outs.
“We were flat,” Pelyak said. “We’ve got seven seniors and I think the severity of the situation started weighing on them and they were pressing.”
Ballas lifed the team’s spirit with a moonshot over the left-center field fence in the sixth with two outs to tie the game at one.
“[Katelyn Wainwright] told me before I got up there to watch the inside so I backed off the plate a little bit and I just took it that way,” Ballas said.
Kirtland answered right back with two singles to lead off the seventh and looked primed to score, but Ballas struck out two of the next three and got a tag out at home to preserve the lead.
Georgalas clubbed a double to start the home seventh and Madison Pelyak pinch ran for her. She moved up to third on a groundout and then scored on a safety squeeze, just beating the tag to take the Tigers to the final. Today’s game against Champion is exactly who Pelyak said he wanted to play if his team made it this far.
“They’re [Champion] a great team,” Pelyak said. “If we were going to play in the final, this is who we wanted to play.”