Tri-Village juniors Tai Mize (left) and Camryn Osborne couldn’t stop smiling after winning the school’s first softball state championship. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Jeff Gilbert)
Tri-Village was one of three state champions this week in Akron to finish unbeaten. And for those who question winning over fun, there’s nothing more fun than that.
Akron, OH – Fun, what they tell me sports should be all about no matter what, was in the damp air this weekend at the state softball tournament.
It was good, clean fun. And loud.
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The Holland Springfield fan base came for the fun. They must have found a sale on cowbells at Rural King. They also came close to buying out the Amazon vendor that sells those obnoxious horns you hear constantly if you bother to watch even five minutes of the World Cup.
Veteran columnist Jeff Gilbert writes Ohio State basketball and OHSAA sports for Press Pros Magazine.com.
Other fan bases had horns and assorted noisemakers. But not as many as the folks from Holland, a village just west of Toledo of about 1,800 people, all of them presumably just wild about softball.
From inside the Firestone Stadium media workroom on Saturday night, a dozen steps from the fray, it sounded like Mardi Gras. It also sounded like the Blue Devils were winning. But they lost their Division III championship game 10-0 to Dover. The Tornadoes, quiet by comparison, had the most fun in the end.
The Hollanders, at least, had a modicum of fun making noise. The players, well, nothing is fun about getting shut out in the state final. Receiving runner-up medals and clapping for the team that beat you is about respect. But it’s not fun. The pain of losing lasts.
Winning is the most fun. Always has been. Always will be. That’s why people, at least the ones born with no less than one competitive bone in their body, celebrate winning.
Nobody who journeyed to Akron played to win more and had more fun than Tri-Village. The Patriots defeated Sugarcreek Garaway 6-0 in the Division VI championship game to finish 30-0 and hugged and danced all over the infield until the adults made them line up for their medals and trophy. Kenton Ridge, in Division IV, and Wheelersburg, in Division V, also finished unbeaten and had just as much fun.
“This is a big, big deal,” said former Wheelersburg baseball coach Mike Estep recently said of the Lady Pirates. Estep guided the Pirates to a pair of OHSAA titles in baseball before stepping down to devote time to the development of the community’s softball profile. “These girls have worked very hard, and I’m very proud of them,” he added.
But Tri-Village won young, with one senior (Emma Cantrell), seven juniors, five sophomores and a freshman. In the championship game, one of those juniors, Aereonna Baker, and one of those sophomores, Emma Greer, knocked in two runs apiece.
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Pitcher Elizabeth Poling, another junior, threw a three-hitter, walked one and struck out three, relying on a stingy defense that puts the fun in fundamental.
During a season that began on March 25 with a 9-4 win over Russia, the Patriots majored in the fun of winning. As the victories piled up, so did the fun.
“It was definitely very fun,” junior second baseman Tai Mize said. “Having the zero in the loss column was something we all earned. It was something we wanted for each other. We didn’t want that one loss or two losses. We all came together and said, ‘We’re Tri-Village and we’re going to win.’ That was all of our mindsets the whole season.”
Number 1, and unquestioned after Tri-Village’s 30-0 perfect-season title in Division VI softball.
Winning is a mindset. Yes, you play softball pitch by pitch, focused on the process to get you those coveted wins. Being present in the moment is crucial to success in any sport. But expecting to win is necessary to being a winner.
I coached basketball at various levels for 20 of the past 25 years. My first years were the building stages of a program, so losing was a way of life. The guys weren’t having much fun. And I got it. My own high school senior year of basketball resulted in only seven or eight wins. We had some fun along the way, but fun is not how I would describe that season.
The signature fun moment came late in the season when we went into Vandalia Butler’s old pit and pulled the major upset. The locker room celebration … I can still feel it, I can still see it in my mind’s eye.
Winning is the best way to have fun. Period.
So as I began to prepare that group of young players for our third season, I said, “If you guys want to have fun, the best way to have fun is to win.”
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That made them work harder. And we started winning. Not every game. But a few more than we lost. And it was more fun.
Tri-Village coach Emily Osborne prepared a difficult schedule for her team. She knew there could be some losses, but the ultimate goal – the fun of being state champion – was worth it.
Before the season, the Patriots scrimmaged Tippecane and lost. Tipp had a 22-7 season so it wasn’t like the Patriots were in danger of not having a good season. But Baker said it was an “Oh, my gosh” moment because they expected to be good.
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“You don’t want to talk about losing, but our first scrimmage, losing, that kept us where we needed to be,” Baker said. “It told us if we don’t play our strongest game, if we don’t play as a team, we’re not going to win.”
And what’s the fun in that? Well, since that one didn’t count, it gave them a perspective that losing would not be acceptable. It didn’t guarantee 30-0, but they knew they didn’t want to feel that way again.
“I’m glad we lost that,” Baker said. “That’s going to keep everybody in their shoes, that we’re going to all know we’re not just going win every game we walk into.”
So 30-0, even if the Patriots didn’t think in those exact numbers, became the goal.
“We took it one game at a time,” Osborne said. “I don’t know that we had the 30-0 in our mind until we hit tournaments. And then we counted it down.”
And on Sunday afternoon, in front of their faithful fans, the Patriots won their first state softball championship. They joined an exclusive fraternity at their school. The boys basketball team in 2015 and the girls basketball team in 2023 were also 30-0 state champions.
On the field after the game, I saw Josh Sagester, the superintendent of Tri-Village and the boys basketball coach.
“Does this bring back memories?” I said.
“It sure does,” he said and smiled.
At the end of each championship game this week, the OHSAA plays “We Are The Champions.”
Now that’s a winner’s song. And a fun song.
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