DAYTON – The Greenville Lady Wave Softball closed out the 2024 season with a 1-0 loss to the Kenton Ridge Lady Cougars in the regional tournament game played at Wright State University.
“We played a solid game; we just didn’t win and left it out there,” said Lady Wave coach Jerrod Newland. “Very disappointed for Lady Wave Nation. I feel I let us down today and many fans there.”
The game was decided in the fourth inning, with the Lady Cougars taking advantage of a two-out walk, a steal of second, and a Kenton Ridge hit to score the game’s lone run and send the Lady Cougars to the regional finals.
“Had a few opportunities, we had runners on in five of the seven innings,” Newland noted. “We just didn’t clutch up. We had runners in scoring position four times and didn’t get the hit.”
“They get a two-out, girl gets on, gets to second, and they get a two-out clutch-up hit,” he added.
Greenville closes a successful season with a 27-5 season mark. The Lady Wave earned the MVL title with a 17-1 mark and completed its 20th consecutive season with 25 or more wins under the direction of head coach Jerrod Newland.
“Great senior class,” said Coach Newland. “I laughed, I’ve cried, I’ve yelled the last three hours and proud of the kids. “Left it on the field and did everything but win. If you had told me we would give up one run to Kenton Ridge in the regional tournament at Wright State I would have thought we would win 99 percent of the time.”
Seven seniors played their final game for the Lady Wave program. No. 1 Savannah Leach, No. 6 Skylar Bryson, No. 7 Haleigh McDermitt, No. 10 Addie Burke, No. 13 Mahayla Cook, and No. 14 Ella McLear.
“Great kids, they give 100 percent, love every one of them to death,” Newland stated. “One of my favorite senior classes ever. Love the kids, every day was fun, even today I look at those kids and see how much effort they put in, 130 games, today going in we played five teams that are alive.”
In the first game DII regional game played at Wright State, Granville defeated Indian Lake 1-0 in 10 innings.
“Good stuff. Two softball games there, and four great teams 1-zip, 1-zip, and that’s the glory days of softball, but they made some good plays, big plays. A good atmosphere, and unfortunately, we didn’t win today – it breaks my heart. It was fun, a good ride, and good kids. Just picked a bad day to play a bad one but hats off to them.”
BOX SCORE
123 456 7 R H E
000 100 0 1 6 0 Kenton Ridge
000 000 0 0 5 2 Greenville
