Once again, Elyria Catholic Coach Terrell Dixon entered the postseason with a slew of season-ending injuries, this time to outfielders Grace Belza and Na’Tavia Thomas.
Despite the injuries, they didn’t let history repeat from the Division III playoff loss a year ago and defeated Hawken, 16-2, in five innings.
Elyria Catholic improved to 16-6 and advanced to a Division II Akron District semifinal. They will play on May 16.
With Belza and Thomas out of the outfield, in went Destiny Perkins and Abbie Roth.
“I thought (Perkins and Roth) played really well,” Dixon said. “Destiny had a little bit of a shaky start, but she recovered well. She shook it off after a little adversity. She can handle herself and made a nice play in left field (in the third inning). Addie (Roth) only had one ball hit to her today and fielded it correctly. She kept cutting a kid off for a single instead of a double. I think they did well out there.”
Hawken scored first with an RBI from pitcher Aniela Skoczen. The lead was short lived, as the Panthers pounced with 13 runs in the bottom of the inning to lead, 13-1.
With the bases loaded and one out, Elyria Catholic shortstop Hannah Brooks bombed a grand slam to left field to put the icing on the cake.
“I wasn’t really expecting to hit a home run. When I am up there, I like to pick a certain pitch. Something that I can drive. With my team cheering me on, it feels good too,” Brooks said.
Elyria Catholic totaled five hits and went around the batting order twice against a team they’ve never seen before. The Panthers opted to approach the plate with their best feet forward.
“I feel like we can beat anybody, as long as we can play a clean game and play like we are used to,” Dixon said. “Take it with a pitch-by-pitch approach, make sure we have our pitchers support and put the bat on the ball like we normally do.”
Elyria Catholic pitcher Harper Morgan pitched for almost the entire game, with the exception of the first pitch, which was a ceremonial first pitch for the injured Belza.
Morgan relieved her to strike out 12 Hawks. and give up three hits for one earned run.
Dixon opted to not run the score after the second inning and showed a sign of sportsmanship. He instructed players to get off base before the pitch, which resulted in an out. to end innings.
“We tell our girls to be classy and be sportsmen,” Dixon said. “It is a tough situation to be in on either side. so we didn’t want to embarrass anyone. If we were on the other side of that, we wouldn’t want somebody to run the score up. … They are a rebuilding program and you don’t want to embarrass anybody.”
Hawken (6-6), a young team, will graduate two seniors as it still looks to find its footing after restarting the program from scratch nearly seven years ago.
“We graduated our pitcher from last season,” Hawken Coach Cassie Bucceri said. “So it’s been an adjustment to fill in that hole. We have a lot of young freshmen transitioning into high school (softball). I am optimistic about where we will be in the future.”
