By Drew Terhall

Dailyadvocate.com

CARLISLE — Make it 16 out of the last 18. The Lady Wave softball team win another OHSAA Division II Softball Southwest District championship with a 9-0 win over Taylor at Carlisle on May 18.

Last season, Greenville won 6-1 over Taylor in the Regional Semi-Finals in extra innings. Head coach Jerrod Newland said they were ready to go up against a great team and a great program in Taylor.

“We were ready to play today. I was excited to get out here and finally get a chance to play. We’ve been geared up for about a week on this one, ready to roll,” Newland said.

Greenville got the scoring going early as junior Zoey Burns hit a double to get on second base. Sophomore Kendall Cromwell drove her in with a double herself to go up 1-0.

Cromwell drove in another run in the third inning on a sacrifice groundout to score junior Kylar Arnett. Arnett led the inning with a single and made her way to third base during Burns’ at bat.

Newland said in big games, teams decided what they want to do and stick with it. In this game, the Lady Wave were aggressive at the plate and aggressive on the base pads. When runners got on, they were looking to advance early and often.

Seniors Savannah Leach and Haleigh McDermitt had back to back RBI singles to go up 4-0 in the fourth inning.

Burns and the Greenville defense were giving it their all on the field to keep Taylor off the scoreboard. After Taylor threatened with a few runners on in the second inning, Greenville didn’t face much traffic on the bases after.

With Burns leading off in the fifth inning, Newland originally wanted to get her some rest and cool herself down after being in the heat for awhile.

Burns didn’t want to sit down and wanted to leadoff the inning. Burns then hit a leadoff home run to go up 5-0.

“I look at Zoey and she leads off. I said, ‘Oh honey, let’s go sit down and get some water. I’ll hit for you.’ She looked at me and said, ‘Coach, I want to hit.’ The coaches all laughed and I said ‘Well hell Zoe go hit.’ Then she hit it over the fence,” Newland said.

The team followed suit and scored three more runs in the inning. Seniors Ella McLear and Mahayla Cook each drove in a run. Leach drove in another run on a RBI double to go up 8-0.

In the bottom of the sixth, Greenville got one more run across on an error.

From that point, Burns didn’t give Taylor much to hit and the team shut them down to move on to regionals.

Burns finished with 10 strikeouts and allowed only two hits. Taylor only had four bases runners in the game.

Newland said District Finals weekend is his favorite. The team has been hard at work getting themselves better during the early part of their tournament run.

He also said it’s great to see the team support each other and celebrate each other in the dug out. The competitive and the supporting nature of the program has helped them win those 16 District titles.

“It’s pretty competitive around us daily. The last three weeks, the young kids are getting so much better and competitive. It’s very competitive. We enjoy getting better and working hard,” Newland said. “Getting here that many times is cool. But winning it is nuts. You’re playing good teams. It’s not like you’re getting cake walks in our division.”

Greenville will play in the OHSAA Division II Softball Southwest Regional Semi-Final on May 22 at 5 p.m. against one seed Kenton Ridge at Wright State.

Last season, Greenville won 5-2 over Kenton Ridge in the Regional Finals at Wright State.

Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected].