BEAVERCREEK — Wilmington and Beavercreek beat the weather — and each other — in a Saturday, March 25 softball doubleheader at Rotary Park.
The visiting Hurricane held off a Beavers rally to claim a 7-6 win in the opener. Then Beavercreek plated two late runs to nab a 2-0 win in Game Two.
Beavercreek coach Paul Martin blamed himself for his team’s early miscues.
“That second win is the best you can do after you lose the first,” Martin said. “We’re making all kinds of mistakes though. … Very honestly, it’s coaching. … I haven’t covered a lot of this stuff that we’re missing. We’re missing signs, and in the past I’ve had classroom situations where I’ve had them write down what the sign means. Most of our baserunning mistakes were because we were aggressive, which I like (being aggressive), but we’re making a lot of ‘em.”
Beavercreek led the opening contest by a 4-1 margin through three innings of play, but Wilmington plated three runs in both the fourth and fifth innings to grab the lead for good. The Beavers had the tying run at third with one out in the final inning, but Olivia Viedt got one Beaver batter to fly out to second base, and then struck out the next batter to end the first contest.
Viedt had a strong game at the plate, too. She had a single, double, sacrifice fly and a solo home run for a 3-for-4 performance with three of Wilmington’s runs knocked in. Sophie Blessing collected a pair of infield hits, stole a base and scored twice; Courtney Smart had two hits with a run scored; and Kendra McKenna doubled and scored a run in the opening game for both schools.
Raidyn Johnson singled, doubled, stole two bases and scored a Beavers run, while Cierra Chastain, Harville and Tabitha Koetter (including a double) each had two hits.
In what turned out to be a second-game pitchers’ duel, Beavercreek’s Harville and Wilmington Smart had a scoreless game going through five innings of play. But then Chastain led off Beavercreek’s sixth inning with a double, galloped to third on a muffed pickoff play, then scored on Harville’s single to center. Taylor Wagner pinch ran for Harville and eventually scored from third on an unidentified teammate’s single into right for the 2-0 lead.
Wilmington advanced Kacy Younker to third in the Hurricane’s last at-bat, but Younkers’ leadoff double went for naught. After a two-out walk to Lyla Self, Harville got the next Wilmington batter to hit into a force out at second to end the game.
“Overall, I’m pleased. We have a fairly young team, with four freshmen out there today. And one girls was a reserve player that we needed in a pinch, because one of our varsity players wasn’t able to be here at the last minute. So she just kinda stepped in and we gave her a uniform,” explained Wilmington coach Glen Blessing. “So from that standpoint overall, I’m happy.
“To battle back from being down by three runs in that first game, then to come back and take a good lead, then to hold on for dear life there in the end, to me, that’s a really good sign from such a young nucleus of players. But we do have some talented seniors, too.”
Blessing and Viedt each had two hits in the second-game loss.
Wilmington (1-2) lost its home opener to Hamilton Badin by a 4-0 score on Monday. Beavercreek (1-1) was at Xenia, but the result of that Monday road contest had not been reported as of presstime.
