Canfield wins 10U district title

By DAN HINER

dhiner@vindy.com

BOARDMAN

Riley Billak was a force in the batter’s box and the circle for the Canfield 10-and-under softball team. Her solo home run helped kickstart Canfield’s offense and she threw a one-hitter, leading to an 11-4 win over Howland at Fields of Dreams on Friday.

Canfield won the Division 2 title and will advance to the to the state tournament in Wheelersburg.

Howland had to finish its game against Boardman, which was postponed on Tuesday and rained out on Wednesday. Howland will also advance to the state tournament since it was the District 2 runner-up.

Jovie Leasure had the only Howland hit — an infield single in the top of the fourth. Billak allowed two runs — one earned — and walked 11 with six strikeouts.

“Had a few walks, which hurt us a little bit,” Canfield head coach Dante Castronova said. “If you throw strikes at 10-U, you can survive. Luckily Riley was able to make the right pitches when she needed to and let our defense make the plays for her.”

Billak also picked a good time to put the ball over the fence.

Howland led 1-0 in the third before Billak sent a 2-0 pitch over the left-field fence in the home half. Leah Figueroa reached on an infield single in the next at-bat and scored on a wild pitch later in the inning.

“I’ve always hit in-the-park home runs,” Billak said. “It was over the fence [for the first time]. It was kind of really exciting.”

Maya Kubancsek scored on a wild pitch for Howland in the top of the fourth to tie the game at 2.

Canfield, however, scored five runs in the fourth and four in the fifth to push the game out of reach.

“That homer obviously set the tone because we were down 1-0 at that point,” Castronova said. “She put a great swing on it and she was helping herself — she’s the pitcher — and everybody just followed suit.

“We’ve been swinging the bats well all year, but sometimes that’s how baseball is. All it takes is one swing, one hit, to get your offense going.”

Madison Schmitz scored on a throwing error by Billak to open the scoring for Howland.

Schmitz gave Canfield headaches on the basepaths, jumping out to large leads. Figueroa had to come from behind the plate to chase her back after every pitch.

After walking and stealing second base, Schmitz got out to her large lead. Except Figueroa threw the ball back to Billak, but Billak’s throw to third went into the outfield and Schmitz scored.

Leasure had an RBI groundout and Kubancsek scored on a wild pitch to cap Howland’s scoring in the sixth.

Figueroa went 2 for 3 with two RBIs and three runs scored. Brooke Opalick, Ashtyn Hanousek and Brooke Pluchinsky also drove in runs for Canfield.

Howland pitcher Calleigh Luman pitched an inning in Howland’s 3-2 win over Boardman earlier in the day. Howland won on a walk-off, bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the seventh inning.

“When you have a rain out and you have to come back to pitch that last inning, you don’t know how the pitchers are going to react coming [out] cold like that,” Howland head coach Christine Ray said.

Luman pitched again in the loss to Canfield. She allowed 11 runs — nine earned — on eight hits and eight walks. She struck out 11 in a complete game.

Canfield beat Howland 4-0 in the first round of the tournament on July 25. Howland beat Poland and Boardman to advance to the title game.

Ray said the goal was to get to the championship to qualify for state. A district championship pin and banner were extra incentive.

“This is our first time in this tournament in a while,” Ray said. “So Howland has been represented pretty well. Beating Poland, beating Boardman and coming back and trying to beat Canfield was our goal.”

Billak was nearly pulled in the final inning.

Kubancsek slide into her at home plate during Howland’s two-run sixth inning.

Billak continued to pitch, but kept putting her arm behind her back. Eventually, the home-plate umpire and Castronova checked on her and allowed her to continue.

“She said her arm kind of got caught underneath a little bit,” Castronova said. “So it was bothering her a little bit. The umpire called me out. She said she was hurting but could keep going. I felt she earned the right to try to finish the game at least.

“I really was only going to give her one more batter because I have another pitcher who does a good job that I could have brought in. But I felt, with the lead that we had, I felt that she deserved to try to finish the game.”