Hilliard Bradley’s Mickey Moody (left) and Aubrey Allen celebrate scoring the tie-breaking and winning runs on a double by Sophia Lopez in the top of the seventh inning in Thursday’s Division I championship game at Firestone Stadium. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Jeff Gilbert)
In a back-and-forth state final with multiple pitching changes, the Jaguars take advantage of a seventh-inning opportunity to bring the Division I trophy back to Hilliard.
Akron, OH – Sophia Lopez didn’t know if she would get the coveted chance to bat in the seventh inning. She hoped so.
But her hope depended on the three batters ahead of her. And she sure didn’t know, if the chance came, that she would be in position to deliver the most important hit in the 17-year history of Hilliard Bradley softball.
Aptus Wealth Management proudly sponsors the Buckeyes and Central Ohio sports on Press Pros.
Sure, every kid dreams about a scenario like tied score, last inning, state championship at stake. They play it out in the backyard with no one around, simultaneously playing the hero and play-by-play announcer.
Veteran columnist Jeff Gilbert writes Ohio State football and basketball and OHSAA sports for Press Pros Magazine.com. Follow on X @jw_gilbert
But there Lopez was in that surreal circumstance, wearing No. 17 in the Bradley blue and white with Jaguars written across the front of the jersey, walking to the plate as calmly as a summer evening stroll through the neighborhood.
“I honestly wasn’t really that nervous,” she said. “I prayed before my at-bat, so I had my trust in God. But I was really excited. I just knew that we prepared really well as a team for this, and I knew that I could come through for my team.”
Two teammates had already come through for the Jags. Aubrey Allen took one for the team off her helmet and jogged to first base to start the inning. Then Mickey Moody put the ball in play, skipping it under and tipping it off the glove of Lancaster’s third baseman for an error.
Allen and Moody then moved to third and second on a passed ball. Then with one out, Lopez was in her backyard with the chance to make Lancaster pay for its mistakes and reward the Bradley fans who made the trip to fill their side of the Firestone Stadium grandstand.
Logan Services, with locations in Dayton, Cincinnati, and Columbus, proudly sponsors your favorite area sports stories on Press Pros Magazine.com.
Lopez, everyone recalled, hit a solo homer in the first inning, so with first base open the possibility was real that Lancaster would intentionally walk her to set up a force out at any base.
“They got her jammed inside a couple of times, and I think that’s what they were counting on is that she couldn’t get her hands through the zone quick enough,” Bradley coach Kevin Moody said. “That’s a tough call. I don’t want to second guess their coach, but I think they had a game plan, and they were sticking to it.”
Bradley junior Sophia Lopez connects for the double that scored two runs and propelled the Jaguars to their first state title.
Lopez made the Golden Gales pay and the 101-year-old stadium reverberate with loud approval. She doubled a 1-0 pitch to right-center, sending Allen and Moody home with the tie-breaking runs, the winning runs, the runs that made Bradley a 7-5 victor in Division I and a first-time state champion.
“For Sophie to come through is huge for her to get her hands through the zone that quick,” Moody said.
The big finish, and everything about the day, left senior Mickey Moody, not in a daze, but feeling like she was stuck in a dream.
Huffer Chiropractic can help your athlete perform at their best – with offices in Osgood, Jackson Center, Marysville, and Dublin, Ohio.
“It doesn’t even feel real right now,” she said. “This is what we’ve been working on since I was in seventh grade. This has always been the goal. Our team really earned it, and that makes me really happy.”
All that was left was for Lainey Dennison, the Jags’ third pitcher, to get the Gales out in the bottom of the seventh. Before she threw a pitch, assistant coach Heather Moody told catcher Taylor Nicholson to tell Dennison the pressure was on Lancaster.
Bradley used three pitchers and they all convene in celebration together. Lainey Dennison, who finished the game, hugs catcher Taylor Nicholson. And Mickey Moody (middle) meets up with Lucy Bennett.
“You have to force them to swing the bat and put the ball in a spot where our defenders aren’t,” Nicholson said of Moody’s message. “So I just told her, and the whole entire infield, take the pressure off. It’s easier said than done, but pitch like you have all season.”
Message received. Dennison pitched a 1-2-3 inning, ending the game with a strikeout and sending the Jags into celebration mode. They were state champs, defeating the team that beat them late in the season by the identical score.
During the middle innings history tried to repeat itself. When Lancaster (24-8) beat Bradley (27-5), the Jags jumped to a 5-2 lead before Lancaster rallied. On Thursday, Lopez’s homer and a three-run third inning put the Jags up 4-0. Surely the two-run single Nicholson hit to cap the inning would stand up this time.
But the Gales didn’t flinch. They began to time Mickey Moody’s pitches, something Centerville failed to do in Wednesday’s semifinal. They sent nine batters to the plate, took advantage of two errors and rallied to a 5-4 lead. The big hit was a two-run double by Kileigh Rohr, the pitcher the Jags knocked out of the circle the previous half-inning.
Bradley’s Aubrey Allen steals second base in the fourth inning before tying to the score 5-5 on a single by Mickey Moody.
But Bradley owns pitching depth most teams don’t. Lucy Bennett replaced Moody, got the third out, and retired seven of the first eight batters she faced.
Meanwhile, Bradley ninth-place hitter Aubrey Allen bunted for a single with two outs in the fourth and stole second. Mickey Moody singled Allen home to tie the score. That was all the Jags could do against Gales reliever Mackenzie Hedrick until the seventh inning.
Bradley’s Sophia Lopez slides around the tag attempt of Lancaster’s Kendall Brown to score during the Jags’ three-run third inning.
When the Gales put two runners on base with one out in the sixth, Kevin Moody turned the game over to Dennison.
“It was my game,” she said. “I just trusted myself, all the preparation our team’s got done to get to this point. Taylor knows me best, so I trust her when she’s calling. I know she’ll get us through each batter.”
Kurtz Bros. has four Central Ohio locations: Dublin, Westerville, Alexandria, I-71/Frank Road.
Dennison got a fly ball and foul pop to Nicholson to kill the threat and retired all five batters she faced.
“That’s been huge throughout the whole season how we’ve had that rotation,” Mickey Moody said. “I’ve always known that if they hit me, we got Lucy and Lainey behind me. Pitching with that confidence has helped me a lot, just knowing that they’re really good too.”
Sophia Lopez rounds third base, greeted by head coach Kevin Moody, and heads toward her waiting teammates after a first-inning solo homer.
The constant in the pitcher-catcher equation was Nicholson. She caught every pitch this season and calls the pitches unlike what most teams do. That’s a strategy Moody has used in his 41 years of coaching with a few exceptions. He trusted Nicholson to call pitches without reservation.
“Number one, cerebral player, and she’s played this game as a catcher for eight years,” he said. “We try to teach them the game because she’s going to move on to college, hopefully some day coach, and get to share what she knows with little kids. I don’t think there’s any better teacher than getting them to do it themselves.”
While this is Bradley’s first state title, it’s the second for Moody. He coached Hilliard Darby to a title in 2000. He knew what kind of team he needed to do it again, and this year’s team made him think a state title was possible from the first day of practice.
“Very fresh in my mind from the very first day we got them all together was we have great athletes,” he said. “All but three of them are two- or three-sport athletes, so they know how to compete. Once they jelled, I had a feeling this was going to be a very special year.”
Like any good coach, Moody took nothing for granted, not his team’s record or past performances, not even the tournament record-tying performance of 19 hits in the 12-4 semifinal win over Centerville.
That’s why some time between the finish of the semifinal and the start of the final, he reminded them that the field dimensions don’t change, nothing about the game changes. They are still the Bradley Jaguars. And the opponent is still the Lancaster Gales.
“The only thing that changes is what’s in your head,” he said. “And they did a great job buckling down and staying focused.”
Precision Strip, in Minster, Ohio, is proud to be the presenting sponsor of the OHSAA state finals on Press Pros Magazine.com.