By Drew Terhall

Dailyadvocate.com

CLAYTON — The Lady Patriots keep their historic season rolling. They blank Fort Loramie, 5-0, in the OHSAA Division IV Softball Southwest Regional Semi-Finals at Northmont High School on May 22.

Head coach Emily Osborne said it was a goal of their’s to strike early. They achieved that goal and more on their way to this win.

“Kudos to them for achieving that goal. We also said we were going to have less than two strikeouts ourselves, we had one. Surprisingly, Kiersten Wilcox had her second one of the season,” Osborne said. “A good pitching team and we were trying to hold ourselves accountable at the plate and get on base.”

Sophomore Tai Mize led off the game with a double. After freshman Emma Greer moved her over to third base, senior Kiersten Wilcox hit a sacrifice groundout to drive Mize in for the 1-0 lead.

Mize came through with runners on in the second inning. She hit a two-run single to extend the lead to 3-0.

Then Fort Loramie started to make some plays on the field and hold off Tri-Village for the next four innings. The Lady Patriots got some runners on, including loading the bases in the sixth inning. The Lady Redskins made that one defensive play to get out of the inning.

Osborne said they had a goal of winning every inning and they did that both offensively and defensively. When they were not scoring runs, sophomore Elizabeth Poling and the Tri-Village defense kept Fort Loramie off the bases.

Fort Loramie started the bottom of the first inning with a walk. They then immediately lined into a double play. After that, Fort Loramie went down in order for the next five innings.

Poling settled into the game and didn’t give Fort Loramie much to hit. She hit her spots and got some weak contact. Her defense backed her up by playing clean defense and getting the easy outs.

Osborne said the team has worked hard all season on their defense and it’s performing very well at just the right time.

“They’ve been working hard this season. That’s just paying off. A good time to have that all come together. We’re glad it worked out in our favor this time,” Osborne said.

Fort Loramie got their first hit of the game in the bottom of the sixth inning on a one-out double. Nothing came of the hit as Tri-Village got out of the inning with no damage done on the scoreboard.

Still putting their foot on the gas, sophomore Aereonna Baker hit a two-run double to give the Lady Patriots a 5-0 lead.

Fort Loramie did get a rally going in the bottom of the seventh as they got runners on first and third with no outs. Greer came into the game and got a strikeout along with two more outs to secure the shutout victory.

Poling finished four strikeouts and three hits allowed with the one walk in six innings of work on the mound.

Osborne said it was a great team win and now they have to do it all again on Friday, May 24.

“We got to go back at it, set some goals. We need to play our game on Friday as well,” Osborne said.

Tri-Village will take on Minster for a spot in the State Semi-Finals in Akron. First pitch will be at 5 p.m. back at Northmont.

Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected].