ARCANUM – Tri-Village Lady Patriots softball cleared the biggest hurdle yet this year in the WOAC with a 9-2 win over Arcanum putting them in the driver seat looking for their third consecutive WOAC league title.
Over the last 4 years the title race has come down to Arcanum and Tri-Village. The Bradford girls won the first ever league title in 2022 and went on to win a state championship.
Arcanum won in 2023 and the Patriots in 2024 and 2025 with the PATS claiming a state championship last year as well.
Tri-Village collected 17 hits with five players having a multi-hit night while Arcanum scattered 10 hits in the game.
Emma Greer continues to swing a hot bat for Tri-Village and got the game started with a line drive double that nearly went out in straight center hitting off the top of the fence. Greer would score after back-to-back – ground ball outs by Kash Mead which got her to 3rd and Hailey Burk then sent her home for a 1-0 lead.
The Patriots touched up Arcanum pitcher Cam Garbig in the 2nd inning for 3 more runs to push the lead to 4-0.
Caley McCarroll who leads the league in homers in a tie with Greer, both have 6, roped a double down the left field line to start the top of 2nd inning.
Cam Osborne then singled to 2nd base that was followed by a walk to Miley Bierly to load up the bases.
Addy Wright hit one deep that was caught near the fence by left fielder Emily Fox that scored McCarroll tagging up on the play.
Garbig got a hitter to pop-out … but then walked Greer to again load up the bases. Kash Mead battled at the plate, and it paid dividends with a single into left field scoring Osborne and Bierly to put the Patriots up 4-0.
Tri-Village tacked on two more runs in the top of the 4th inning both coming with two outs.
Greer hit a single followed by a walk to Mead. Hailey Burk singled to score Greer and then Mead scored on a base hit from Aereonna Baker to go up 6-0.
Arcanum in the bottom of the inning got a one-out hit from Rees Hoffman. Meredith Laux hit one back to the pitcher, who then tried to get the force at 2nd … but the throw was late and Arcanum had their first threat of the game with runners at 1st and 2nd.
Fox laid down a sacrifice bunt moving two runners into scoring position at 2nd and 3rd with two outs. Poling then coaxed a ground ball to McCarroll at 1st base who stepped on the bag to end the scoring threat.
Arcanum again threatened in the 5th inning getting two hits, one from Grace Fry and the other by Jordan Garbig.
Poling kept the Trojans off balance most of the night as they struggled to get any real solid contact, she managed three infield pop-ups to get out of the inning unscathed.
The Patriots added a run in the 6th inning on a McCarroll RBI bringing home Burk stretching the lead to 7-0.
Arcanum rallied in the bottom of the inning … with two outs and Meridith Laux on with a hit, Poling threw a couple of wild pitches that allowed courtesy runner Brynn Byers to get to 3rd base and then walked Ella Flatter.
Lead-off hitter Grace Fry delivered with an RBI single to get Arcanum on the board scoring Byers and now they had runners on 1st and 2nd.
Tri-Village coach Emily Osborne was pleased with the effort she got from her senior leader Liz Poling on the mound against a good Arcanum team but decided it was time for a pitching change.
“I told Liz, she did a good job, making them hit outs and giving us a chance to make plays behind her. She got ahead in the count, hit her spots and I thought maybe we’d get her to go all the way through for a shutout,” coach Osborne stated.
“But it’s a long season and it’s nice to have options so we brought in Caley McCarrolI. We’re hoping to go deep in the tournament and having the flexibility of throwing the two and still have a third kid we can throw in at spots is nice to have,” Osborne added.
Senior pitcher Elizabeth Poling would eventually get the win, going 5.2 innings, giving up 8 hits, 2 runs, 2 walks and had 2 strikeouts.
Arcanum’s Matty Noe would touch up McCarroll in relief immediately with a hard shot to deep center field that just stay in the park. The double scored Flatter and the Trojans trailed 7-2.
But the rally got cut short as Grace Fry also tried to score from first on the double and the Patriots relay throw home was in time for Burk to apply the tag on Fry to get out of the inning preventing further potential damage.
Tri-Village would get those two runs back in the top half of the final inning. With one out Claire Royer slapped a double over third base. Addy Wright followed it with her 2nd double of the night scoring Royer.
Kaley Brandon singled with Wright going to 3rd base and then Greer collected her 3rd hit to score Wright as the Patriots held a 9-2 lead into the bottom of the inning.
Caley McCarroll gave up one hit in the last inning, two in the game but shut down the Trojans to earn a save and the Patriots would remain undefeated in the WOAC with 9-2 win.
Offensively Emma Greer was 3-4, 2 runs, 1 rbi, 1 walk, Aereonna Baker 3-4 and rbi, Addy Wright 2-4, 2 rbi, 1 run, Cam Osborne 2-4, 1 run, Caley McCarroll 2-4, 1 run, 1 rbi, and Hailey Burk 2-4, 1 run, 2 rbi.
Arcanum’s Jordan Garbig was 3-4, Grace Fry 2-3, 1 rbi, Meredith Laux 2-2 and Matty Noe 1-4, 1 rbi.
Arcanum Coach Mike Morris gave credit to Tri-Village and knew going it they needed to keep it a low scoring game.
“We wanted to keep it low scoring, we’re not going to get in a big home run match with them. We should have probably shifted earlier in the game, they probably had five, maybe six runs, if we shifted earlier. We hit the ball tonight, we just didn’t hit it hard enough at times and the wind was a factor as well, no excuses, obviously, they’re a great team,” Morris commented.
“We got a lot of ball left as we continue to work to get ready for tournament. I think we can do some damage in the tournament this year. We’ve got a big game tomorrow with Miami East and we’ll see how we fare with them, they are another great hitting team, so we will see what we can do,” Morris concluded.
Arcanum fell to 9-6 overall and 4-1 in the WOAC tied with Tri-County North also at 4-1. The Trojans will host North on May 7th.
Tri-Village improved to 10-3 overall and 5-0 in the WOAC. The Patriots will host St. Henry on Saturday and Franklin Monroe on Monday.
