“There’s a lot of emotions going around,” Moore said after Monroe blanked Springfield Shawnee 4-0 in a Division II district final at Brookville. “I had a little bit of tears this morning at graduation, but I had to pull it all together and come out on the field today.
» PHOTOS: Rick Cassano’s 50-image gallery from Brookville
“It’s all kind of hard to put into words. It’s an amazing feeling. Everything we’ve been working for the whole season, everything you do, this just makes it all a whole lot better. I’m proud of my team and everybody that’s been along on this journey with us.”
Third baseman Sam Ross and Moore, a second baseman, are the Hornets’ only two seniors and contributed hits to the conquest of Shawnee, this season’s runner-up behind Plain City Jonathan Alder in the Central Buckeye Conference Kenton Trail Division.
Alyssa Wagner fired a two-hitter with 10 strikeouts for Monroe, which improved to 19-3 and will travel to Mason on Wednesday to face Clinton-Massie in a 5 p.m. regional semifinal. The Hornets were also district champions in 1986 and lost their first game in the regional.
“What can I say? I’m so proud of these kids. They answered the call,” seventh-year Monroe coach Tim Kellis said. “I’m just so happy for the program. Where we were eight years ago when I was an assistant — we were just bad. We’ve been striving to get to a regional because once you get there, you never know what can happen.”
Kellis, 60, isn’t known for displaying a lot of emotion on the field, but he showed quite a bit on a steamy day in Montgomery County.
“God’s been good to me,” Kellis said. “You look at (Miami University Middletown women’s basketball) and we’ve won five league titles in a row and two state titles in a row. Here we’ve won three league titles in a row and finally a district title. God’s saying, “I’m blessing you. Just do what I tell you.’
“These kids have gone through some crap losing a couple teammates in the last few weeks, but they’ve played through it. We’ll see what we’ve got left for Massie. They’re the king dog, but we’re going to go over to Mason and see what we can do.”
Armed with a 4-0 lead after the Hornets scored four times in the fourth inning, Wagner took a no-hitter into the fifth. Taylor Cox ended that bid by smacking a leadoff single to right-center, but she got thrown out trying to stretch the hit into a double.
Dani Ross had an infield single in the seventh, when the Braves stranded two runners. Wagner struck out Josie Gray to end the game, then embraced catcher Sam Schwab.
“That last inning … we like to play around a little bit, but we still made it out with no runs,” said Wagner, a junior right-hander. “Me and Sam have this last-batter-strikeout thing going on right now. We get excited and just run at each other.”
Righty Hannah Beers pitched a five-hitter for Shawnee (18-8), and all five of those hits came in the fourth inning.
Sam Ross ignited Monroe with a leadoff double, and Erin Dyke followed by blooping a one-out RBI double into left field. Moore, Emily Mullins and Honour Stevens delivered consecutive singles, and Mullins, Stevens and Wagner (on a bunt) drove in runs.
“There were 13 half innings of nothing and then one team scored four in one inning,” Shawnee coach Chris Roberts said. “I credit them. Their pitcher threw a whale of a game. She kept us off balance. She threw the ball well, put it where she wanted it. We never squared her up very well.”
He kept waiting for an offensive outburst by his team, but it never came.
“We’ve kind of been a late-scoring team all year long,” Roberts said. “I thought in that fifth and sixth inning that we would get it going. When we got the base hit and then the girl got thrown out trying to stretch it, that kind of took the wind out of our sails.
“I thought it was pretty uncharacteristic the way we played. I don’t think we had our best game. We had a lot of little minor errors, mental kind of mistakes. We made a couple base-running mistakes. We had some miscommunication on a play between our shortstop and the outfield.
“I liked the fight at the end. We never give up — it’s been that way all year long. We’re a really young team, so hopefully we’ll build on this and get back here next year.”
Wagner had good pop on the ball, even though she’s playing with a nagging knee issue. She said the Braves swung the bats better than a team with only two hits.
“This is definitely one of the better hitting teams we’ve faced,” Wagner said. “They were making contact on pitches that you wouldn’t expect people to make contact on, but me and Schwab worked through it as we usually do.”
Kellis noted that over the last three games, the opposing leadoff hitters are 0-for-11 with 11 strikeouts against Wagner.
The Monroe coach said his Hornets bounced back from “a terrible practice” on Friday.
“It was so bad, we almost stopped in the middle and went home,” Kellis said. “We weren’t focused and we were kind of going through the motions. I’m like, ‘Do you guys understand the urgency? Do you know what you’re playing for?’
“We had a little team meeting before we got on the bus today and they’re like, ‘Coach, it’s all good. We’ve got it.’ They were very, very loose on the bus coming up here.”
Monroe had a couple outfield miscues against the Braves. Kellis did praise the glove work of freshman first baseman Hazel Moon.
Moore said the seniors tried to make sure everybody maintained a proper mind-set throughout the game.
“We were always pumping everyone up and making sure everyone was dialed in,” she said. “We were just making sure everyone was heads up.”
Kellis said the seniors have been part of seven titles (league, sectional and district) over the last four seasons.
Monroe 000-400-0—4-5-1
Shawnee 000-000-0—0-2-1
WP — Alyssa Wagner (19-1); LP — Hannah Beers (13-5). Records: M 19-3, S 18-8
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