When the Division I state softball runners-up of the past two seasons met for the latest installment of northwest Ohio's top recent rivalry on Monday night, they again managed to produce a classic duel.
In a back-and-forth battle in this Northern Lakes League crossover game, fourth-ranked Anthony Wayne plated an unearned run in the top of the eighth inning and held on for 5-4 victory at eighth-ranked Springfield.
The Generals, last year’s state runner-up, are now 19-1 overall and a first-place 9-0 in the NLL's Buckeye Division.
Springfield, the 2022 state runner-up, dropped to 14-7 overall and 6-4 in the NLL's Cardinal Division, a half game behind Bowling Green (12-8, 7-4) for first place.
Piper Phillips, a freshman outfielder who entered the game in the fifth inning, sparked the Generals' three-run rally in the seventh inning with a lead-off single.
She then led off the eighth with another single and, after being bunted to second by senior shortstop Abby Kennelly (3-for-4), scored what proved to be the game-winning run. She came around when Essence Dobbelaere-Buchman's ground ball could not be fielded cleanly.
What did AW coach Ron Myers like most about his team in this game?
“The resiliency,” he said. “Everybody stayed in the game. Piper Phillips came in, and her at bats were huge coming off the bench. The entire team stayed in that game the entire time.
“It's a coach's nightmare playing our first game coming out of prom weekend. The majority of these girls were at prom on Saturday, and today they were out here playing. This sort of reset us a little bit, and it took a little while to get reset.”
AW's dynamic pitching duo of Michigan-bound senior Kat Meyers and junior Notre Dame-commit Molly Conner combined to allow just five hits and strike out 16 Blue Devils batters in eight innings.
“Springfield's a huge competitor for us,” Conner said. “A great team with great coaches and great players. It's always quite a dramatic game whenever we play them, but I think what helped us today is that we didn't let our highs get too high or our lows get too low.
“We just kept plugging away and trying to make contact with the ball. We just wanted to put it somewhere, get on base, and score some runs. I like how we we stayed really calm and trusted in each other.”
Meyers yielded two runs on two hits and struck out 11 in five innings, and Conner worked the final three innings, allowing two runs on three hits while striking out five.
“As usual, Kat Meyers and Molly Conner did a great job,” coach Myers said. “They're friends off the field and teammates on the field. They're our 1-2 punch. They did give up a few runs today, and the team was able to rally behind them and recover from that.”
Their work in the circle offset a superb effort from Springfield junior Callee Chappetta, who is in her first season as a regular varsity pitcher. She scattered nine hits and struck out eight AW batters, plus she went 2-for-4 at the plate.
“It was just another classic battle in the history of these two amazing programs,” Springfield coach Rob Gwozdz said. “Kat [Meyers] was on fire to start, and Ava Littin hit one to get us going.
“These games boil down to a play here or a play there. We had a couple opportunities to make plays and we didn't make them. That kind of helped [AW] in the outcome there.”
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