Badin 11, Northridge 1
Third-inning rally sparks Rams' rout
Northridge can't handle Badin's small-ball strategy as Rams advance.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
By Pete Conrad
WAYNESVILLE — Greg Stitzel was taking no chances. The Badin High School softball coach decided it was time to go small.
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The fruits of that decision were enormous: the Rams' first sectional tournament victory in, well, a long time.
"I think it was 2003 or '04, I can't remember, it's been that long," Stitzel joked after Badin survived a rocky start and run-ruled the Dayton Northridge Polar Bears 11-1 in five innings Monday, May 12, in the Division III opening round at Waynesville High School.
Badin broke a 1-1 tie in the bottom of the third inning with a four-run rally which featured no balls hit past the infield.
Two runs crossed the plate on a sacrifice bunt by Kaitlyn Spradling plus an error, and two more came home on a bunt single by Stella Luggen. Add to that a walk to Stacie Weber to open the inning, a bunt single by Megan Batt and an infield single by Katie Gray.
"We try bunting a lot, but we struggle sometimes getting it down," said Batt, Badin's catcher who went 4-for-4 with a double and RBI. "But today it really helped us."
"I said when we came in that we're going with small-ball to make something happen," said Stitzel, whose team improved to 13-12. "We have to, and that kinda opened us up.
"Their pitcher (Erica Silvey) played summer ball with some of our girls and we knew her, and she wasn't bad," Stitzel explained. "We decided to put the ball down in the dirt and get something going."
The Rams added five more runs in the fourth inning with the help of a two-run single by Gray and an RBI double by Luggen, and clinched the victory in the bottom of the fifth on a run-scoring single by Lindsay Williams.
Weber, the winning pitcher, scattered five hits and struck out nine. Sarah Schomerloh had two of the hits for Northridge, which fell to 2-16.
Badin advances to the second round and will return to Waynesville on Wednesday, May 14, to play Blanchester at 5:30 p.m.
"We were a little nervous because we haven't won an out-of-season game in quite a while," Batt said. "It feels great, especially as a senior, to keep going."
