SIMULATED SPRINGFIELD — Underdog Cedarville had Greeneview on the proverbial ropes, in Friday’s simulation of a girls high school softball game between the two Ohio Heritage Conference foes.
But the Rams did what good teams do … they never gave up.
Greeneview trailed by an 11-7 margin in the bottom of the eighth, but exploded for nine runs in that inning to rally to a 16-11 win, April 3 at Wittenberg University’s Carlton Davidson Stadium.
The Rams had built a 4-0 lead after three innings of play, but Cedarville had its big inning of the contest in the fourth. The Indians plated seven runs on six hits, with the big blast coming of Kaylee Cypher’s bat for a two-run home run, to take a 7-4 lead.
Several runners were left stranded on their respective bases while the dice roller took a lunch break. The Indians player were not amused.
Cedarville added an insurance run in the fifth, as Regan Coffey singled home Sarah Sizer for an 8-4 lead.
Greeneview’s Catie Caraway doubled to left with the bases loaded in the fifth, to score Makenna Reno, Kaitlinn Hinkle and Meghan Hess, to pull the Rams within a run at 8-7.
The Indians tagged on a couple more runs in the sixth, off a single by Lauren Whitaker and a sacrifice fly from Sizer. Then, Jade Herron scored in the eighth on a Rams double play for Cedarville’s final run of the contest and an 11-7 lead.
Greeneview capitalized on five Indians bases on balls, smacked around nine hits including Bryce Ratliff’s ground-rule RBI double, and sent nine batters to the plate to rally for the win.
The teams combined to have 10 batters hit multiple hits in the contest.
Herron led Cedarville with a 4-for-5 day at the plate, smacking a double, walking once and scoring three times. Indian teammates Coffey and Whitaker each had three hits, while Karie Yake, Cyphers and Grace Jacobs each had two hits apiece.
Greeneview’s Caraway led everybody at the plate. She connected for five hits in six plate appearances with a double, three RBI and three runs scored. Ratliff went 4-for-5 with a walk, RBI and two runs scored, while Harley Clonch and Alexa Simpson each collected three hits.
All-Star Rosters next week….. maybe: It’s simulation baseball and softball that we’re doing here, in case you haven’t figured it out just yet. Next week, we may have games where we mix rosters for each school so that we’ll have kids from both baseball and softball on the same teams. Yeah, yeah. It’s comparing Apples and Oranges. We get it. … And we don’t care. We’re throwing them onto the same bench (but we’ll do our best to keep them all socially distant).