Miami East freshman Caitlin Howell’s grand slam in the fifth inning broke open a one-run game to send the Vikings to a Three Rivers Conference victory. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Julie Wright-Daniel)
The Vikings scored nine runs in the fourth inning and seven in the fifth to pull away in a duel between the best softball teams in the Three Rivers Conference.
Casstown, OH – Miami East and Covington will win a lot of softball games this season and be in each other’s way as they chase the Three Rivers Conference title. But not many, if any, will resemble their high-scoring first meeting.
Not whenever their opponents happen to be league-contender types. And not likely when the meet again in Covington in three weeks.
But it’s well known that on a windy Tuesday, on the last day of March, anything can happen. And so it did.
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The two best teams in the Three Rivers Conference raced to light up the scoreboard like a slow-pitch church league game, complete with long home runs, laser line drives and the occasional misplay. The Vikings and Buccaneers combined for 33 runs, 25 hits and four home runs through a healthy cross wind.
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The action was fast at times with RBIs flying off the assembly line. And it was slow at times with 14 walks and three hit batters. Leadoff hitters were about the only ones to bat with the bases empty. But sooner or later the back-and-forth scoring had to stop.
And when it did, freshman Caitlin Howell’s grand slam and junior Alyssa Siefring’s relief pitching and game-ending hit combined to push Miami East over the finish line to a 21-11 victory in the sixth inning.
Siefring, the collector of a game-high five RBIs, hit a two-run single to right to make Covington the rare victim of the 10-run mercy rule.
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“You score 11 runs you definitely shouldn’t get run ruled, but most of the time you don’t lose the game,” Covington coach Brooke Gostomsky-Menker said.
This was not the type of game anyone expected. Not the coaches, not the players and not the fans, most of them in chairs watching through the outfield fence.
Caitlin Howell watches her fifth-inning grand slam head for green grass beyond the fence.
“Usually when we play each other, it doesn’t happen like that,” Miami East coach Brian Kadel said. “You got two good programs. They’re usually low-scoring, quick games. But both teams can hit up and down the order. So, I guess anything can happen on any day.”
The Vikings piled up 16 hits with Jaylen Carter, Howell and Siefring getting three apiece.
Covington (7-2) reached the Division VII state semifinals last year and lost only one player to graduation. So it was no surprise when their best hitter and top run producer Emalyn Johnson launched a two-run homer in the first inning over the fans sitting behind the center-field fence.
After Miami East gained a 3-2 lead on Siefring’s RBI single in the second and Jaylen Carter’s two-run homer in the third, the Vikings fired back with a four-run fourth, powered by Karlee Schwartz’s two-run single and Ava Hartwig’s solo homer. That ended Miami East starter Kylie Gentis’ time in the circle.
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Surely, this game would settle into a pitching and defensive battle. Not quite.
The Vikings answered with a nine-run fourth and a seven-run fifth, aided by Covington’s defensive lapses, some on errors, others on hits that were difficult plays that could have been made.
The Vikings had one run across in the fourth before Whitney Burns recorded the second out. But an earlier error meant that second out didn’t end the inning. And did the Vikings ever take advantage.
Ava Hartwig homers in the fourth inning to put Covington up 6-3.
Three of the next four batters – Jorgia Roeth, Jaila Thurman, Carter – drove in runs and one walked to give the Vikings an 8-6 lead. Burns left the circle. Then Howell, Siefring and pinch-hitters Tenley Potter and Whitni Enis drove home more runs home for a 12-6 lead.
Eight runs and scored with two outs. And all nine runs were unearned.
“Our defense did not show up today whatsoever,” said Gotomsky-Menker, whose team committed four errors and failed to make a couple of other difficult plays they usually make. “We gave them most of their runs. We’re gonna get hit. We just have to play defense behind them, and we know that, and we did not show that today.”
But the Vikings weren’t safe. Howell struck out the only batter she faced to end the fourth. But in the fifth she struggled with four walks and a hit batter that shrunk the lead to 12-8. Then Schwartz hit a two-run double. Two more walks made the score 12-11, and Kadel replaced Howell with Siefring. The next two Buccs flew out to end the inning.
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Then Howell buried the memory of her difficult inning as a pitcher and hit a grand slam in the fifth for a 16-11 lead. And after three walks, another Covington error with the bases loaded made it 19-11. Siefring made sure Covington wouldn’t come back by pitching around a walk in the sixth for a quick inning.
“The girls did a good job with adversity because Caitlin struggled on the mound, and she came up and hit that grand slam after struggling so bad,” Kadel said. “The girls had a lot of maturity, a lot of grit. It was good to see.”
Covington shortstop Ava Hartwig makes a first-inning catch while colliding with left fielder Nell Rogers (left) and center fielder Karlee Schwartz.
Each team struck out only three times. While both can hit, defense will be key throughout the season. Burns throws strikes for the Buccs as does Gentis for the Vikings. Burns has the experience of last year pitching her team to a regional title.
“Pitching can win us games at times,” Gostomsky-Menker said. “We know that the balls are going to get put in play, and we just have to make the routine plays. We expect more from them because I’ve seen it, and we know we can do it.”
Kadel is breaking in three pitchers who have little to no experience. Gentis, a senior, is the starter. Howell is a freshman who had pitched five innings in the first five games. Siefring is a junior who recorded two outs before Tuesday.
“We knew coming in this year all three pitchers are going to have to throw,” Kadel said. “Kylie’s been throwing really well for us, but that’s a good hitting team. Sometimes that happens and we try to mix up. You try to follow Kylie with something fast, and we’ll bring back Alyssa, just to mess with hitters. Today, we just didn’t get as long as we want out of Kate. But that’s OK. Alyssa was ready to go and did her job.”
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Kadel’s scheduling didn’t make it easy on his pitchers, but they should be ready to go for the league schedule. They are 4-2 and are settling into a similar form that led to their fourth straight district title last year as a Division V team. The Vikings’ difficult schedule includes a 4-0 loss to defending Division IV state champion Kenton Ridge and a 14-0 loss to Division I power Austintown Fitch. Northwestern, always a tough out, is next on Wednesday.
“This seven-game stretch has been something else,” Kadel said. “Every team we’ve played has been a regional team, a state team, so it’s been good to kind of get us ready for the rest of the season.
Kylie Gentis starts for Miami East, but she will get relief help this season from Caitlin Howell and Alyssa Siefring.
“We try to play the best teams we can find. Now it just happened, as I’m trying to populate games with these teams, they all came up early.”
What pleases Kadel most so far is his team’s ability to handle adversity like falling behind 6-3 to Covington after a difficult inning. It’s what he expects from juniors and seniors who have played a lot of varsity softball.
“How they handle stuff is always important,” he said. “Even over the last several years, I think our team’s grit and ability to handle adversity can give us advantage over some other teams that might even have little bit more talent than we do. Our girls always seem to bounce back.”
Bouncing back is exactly what Gostomsky-Menker wants to see when her team plays at Riverside on Wednesday.
“They’re gonna bounce back quick,” she said. “They know what they do, they know what they did wrong, they know how to adjust. We’ve been through adversity before. We started early like this last year, so we know how to do this.”
The Buccs went from 7-7 last season to 21-10 and the program’s first run to state since Gostomsky-Menker was a freshman player in 2013. Her team, obviously, wants to make it back to Akron and do more. And they hope to do it with their coach standing in third-base coaches box.
Gostomsky-Menker is pregnant with twins and due in June. State softball is June 3-7. But right now, as April begins, the players and their coach aren’t talking about June despite the constant reminders.
“We definitely don’t ignore it, but we don’t talk about it,” she said of trying to return to state. “It’s just an expectation at this point. We expect to play well, we expect to want to go there, and we expect to be there at the end of the season.”
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