GREENVILLE – The No. 2 DIII state-ranked Lady Wave squeaked by a good Piqua Lady Indians team 3-2 to stay perfect in MVL play with a 13-0 record.
“Great teams find a way to win, and we found a great way to win today,” said Greenville coach Jerrod Newland. “They (Piqua) made every play. Great team, great coach, made plays, and today the ball wasn’t on our side on a few hops, but good teams find ways, and we found a way and escaped with an awesome win.”
The teams played scoreless through the opening inning, with the Lady Wave using a Lily Brubaker one-out second-inning single and a two-out RBI single off the bat of sophomore Cloe Shuttleworth to lead 1-0 after two complete.
The Lady Wave dodged a bullet in the top of the third with a Lady Indians’ runner on first and racing home on a double to Lizzie Shaffer in center coming up with a throw to cutoff Leah Force at shortstop relaying the throw on a bead to catcher Kendall Cromwell with a perfectly executed play for an out at the plate keeping Piqua off the board.
Piqua took advantage of a Greenville error, scoring an unearned run in the top of the fourth, knotting the score at 1-1 through the top of the sixth inning of action.
The Lady Indians made it interesting in the top of the fifth with a leadoff double to right, a Greenville error putting runners on second and third with no outs, a strikeout for one out, a Piqua base running misque on a deep fly ball to right for the second out with the runners holding at second and third. Coach Newland loaded the bases with an intentional walk, setting up a dramatic Ella Oswalt strikeout looking, keeping the game tied at 1-1.
Greenville went down in order in the bottom of the fifth, and Piqua went down in order in the top of the sixth, bringing the Lady Wave to the plate to push two runs across in the bottom of the sixth, taking a 3-1 lead. The Inning opened with Ella Oswalt driving her second hit of the night to center, a Lizzie Shaffer well-executed sacrifice bunt moving Oswalt to second, and back-to-back RBI singles off the bats of Kendall Cromwell and Leah Force giving Greenville a two-run cushion.
“Last inning, Ella gets the hit, Lizzie moves her over, and Kendall gets a hit,” Newland said. “That says where you’re at, and another kid steps up and hits it, but it’s a great fast pitch game, we’ll take a lot out of this today just from doing this.”
Piqua did not go quietly in the top of the seventh, getting back-to-back one-out doubles, making it a 3-2 game with a runner on second. Out No. 2 came by way of a strikeout with a 5-3 groundout (Brubaker to Zoey Burns) for the final out of the game, preserving the conference win for the Lady Wave.
Greenville freshman Ella Oswalt went the distance on the mound, throwing 7.0 innings to earn the win, allowing one earned run, five hits, three walks, and striking out 10.
“Great job on the mound out of the youngin’ to keep us in the game,” Newland stated. “Kendall (Cromwell) did a great job behind the plate.”
Not only did Oswalt earn the win, but led the Lady Wave at the plate, going 2-3. Force went 1-2 with a walk, and an RBI; Brubaker was 1-2 with a run scored; Cromwell 1-3 with an RBI; Shuttleworth 1-2 with an RBI; Burns went 1-3.
“Great fast pitch softball game,” said Coach Newland. “Two good teams. They’re 10-5 and a good program. They have four or five awesome kids. They didn’t make an error and put balls in play a little bit. We booted the ball three times and played a solid ‘B’ game today; just lucky to get a win.”
“We’re getting better every day, but we did not play crisp tonight, and you can’t play flat because any given day, anybody can beat anybody, and today the ball doesn’t know but boy, we came out on top and did what we needed to do … we win,” Newland concluded.
BOX SCORE:
123 456 7 R H E
000 100 1 2 5 0 Piqua
010 002 X 3 7 3 Greenville
