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West Branch gets familiar foe for district title game
By Charles grove
ALLIANCE
The stage is set for West Branch to claim a softball district title.
The Warriors (23-4) dispatched Lakeview 7-2 in their semifinal matchup to make the final. And since top-seeded Hubbard lost to Marlington 5-3 in a wild finish, the Warriors have a much more familiar opponent in today’s championship game.
West Branch and Marlington both are members of the Northeastern Buckeye Conference.
“We’ve played them twice already so there will be no surprises,” West Branch head coach Sis Woods said. “It’ll be a tough even though we beat them 10-0 last night [in an exhibition]. They have three pitchers and we’ve faced all three and they’ve seen both of ours.”
Marlington advanced to the title game by finally cracking Hubbard pitcher Addy Jarvis. With three outs to play, the Dukes trailed 2-1 but scored four in their half to eventually win 5-3.
“I think we just had an off day,” Jarvis said. “We were on our heels. We left a lot of runners on base. It does suck that we have to go from Hubabrd to [Alliance] since the other teams are closer but we just didn’t make routine plays. I was off to start the game and just wasn’t feeling it today.”
West Branch scored early and often against Lakeview (16-5), which was the higher No. 2 seed coming into the game as opposed to West Branch’s No. 3 seed.
Bailey Byers scored on a single from Maddie Pidgeon after Byers reached on a two-base error to lead off the game.
And the Warriors added on in the second when Peyton Alazaus doubled home Kylie Coffelt. Byers followed that up with a two-run home run to the deepest part of center field to make it 4-0.
Lakeview got one back in the second when Marissa Zoccali grounded home Sam Marino but the Warriors wasted no time getting that back in the next half inning when Pidgeon came around to score on a throwing error by Marino.
But the real trouble for Lakeview came in the bottom of the fourth when the Warriors small-balled their way home.
Alazaus and Byers walked to lead off the inning and after a successful sacrifice bunt by Grace Heath, Pidgeon and Kelsey Byers both put down perfect bunts that scored Alazaus and Bailey Byers.
Lakeview went home on each of the bunts, but the Warriors were too quick each time.
“I would tell [Marlington] to make sure they can execute bunt defense because that is what really killed us,” Marino said. “[West Branch] is very good so they need to make sure they can defend and make those plays.”
Woods said the leadoff hitters who reached were as important as the players who successfully laid down the bunts. West Branch had its leadoff hitter reach base every inning.
“We did an excellent job with bunts today ut we also did very well to get runners on to be able to do that,” Woods said.
The Warriors weren’t necessarily looking to bunt Lakeview to death from the very beginning, but once they saw the success they forced the Bulldogs to adapt and stop it.
“It started working so we continued,” Woods said.
Lakeview head coach Vicki Lawrence said Marlington will need clutch hitting to beat West Branch.
“We left two on in the second and another in the third and you have to take advantage of those situations,” Lawrence said.