’Cats scratch back
Keystone tops Elyria, finishes tournament 3-1

Bob Daniels
The Chronicle-Telegram
LAGRANGE — Keystone bounced back from its first loss of the softball season and Elyria got bounced twice on a beautiful, warm Saturday at Community Park.  But North Canton Hoover, with a barrage of hits and overwhelming pitching, won four games in two days to finish undefeated in the inaugural Albert C. Prebis Memorial Classic.
 

The tournament attracted a field of eight elite Northeast Ohio softball programs representing 21 state championships and 41 Final Four appearances.
 

Hoover’s closest competitor was host Keystone, which drilled Akron Springfield and Elyria on the final day of the round robin after losing to Tallmadge on Friday.  Keystone (11-1) recovered with a 6-1 thumping of Springfield’s Spartans, then came back to whip the Pioneers 5-1. Elyria was shellacked in an 11-0, five-inning opener that saw Hoover pitcher Jessica Simpson fire a perfect game. Elyria committed three errors.
 

Keystone finished the weekend 3-1. Division III Wellington, after three straight losses to teams owning a combined 18 state titles, finished the tournament with a big win over Barberton.
Elyria, Hoover and Springfield finished play Friday unbeaten in two games. Hoover, the state’s third-ranked Division I team this week, was the only one of the three to win another game.
Keystone, ranked third in Division II, got back on track behind the hitting of freshman Kara Dill and senior Jessica Burt and the pitching of senior Kristie Malinkey, who struck out 18 for the day and walked only one.
Dill had two singles, a double and a triple for the afternoon. It was her two-run triple in the fifth that broke open a scoreless tie with Springfield in the first game. “It was just a matter of my putting the ball in the right place at the right time,” said Dill.
 

And Burt drilled two triples against Elyria, the second of which was a two-run shot into the gap in left-center in the fifth that gave the Wildcats a lead they never surrendered. Burt played at Elyria when she was a freshman.
“They’re just another team,” Burt said. “It’s nice to win, but you just have to look at it as another team. They’re a very good team and we had to do our best to beat them.”
 

Until the fifth, the Pioneers held a 1-0 lead that looked as though it might hold up. But Keystone’s Ginger Slone hit a one-out single, went to third on Dill’s double and scored when Megan Coyne grounded to the right side. Burt’s blast scored Dill and Malinkey, who had reached on a fielder’s choice.  Burt scored when Kate Yeo followed with a double to left field, and the Wildcats added the cruncher after Erica Reid led off the sixth with a single and Jessica Nacarato, running for Reid, eventually scored on a wild pitch.
Malinkey had relief help in both games from Burt, who hurled three hitless, scoreless innings while striking out four and walking just one.  “It was nice to have Jess come in and relieve me,” Malinkey said. “They were hitting me. They pretty much tattooed me. It was nice to have Jess come in and pitch just wonderful.”
Elyria’s run came in the second when shortstop Andrea Nagy reached on an error and Tess Sito sent her around with a long triple to the fence in left-center.
 

“We knew we were going to face teams that could put the ball in play,” said Keystone coach Jim Piazza. “So we had our strongest defensive team out there. Also, Kristie’s style of pitching is different than Jessica’s, so we thought we’d go until they started to make contact with Kristie, then come with Jessica. It worked out OK.”
The big blow in the Pioneers’ opening-game loss to Hoover was a second-inning grand slam by the Vikings’ Felicia Houtz, whose blast cleared the fence in left-center.
“You go from a good mood one day to a cruddy mood the next day,” said Elyria coach Ken Fenik, whose Pioneers dropped to 9-3. “I’m definitely not happy with the way we played today. In the first game, it was just (Hoover’s) dominant hitting. I picked them at the beginning of the year to be the big dog in Division I.”
 

Elyria 1                 Keystone 5
            ab r h bi             ab r h bi
K Sito 4 0 0 0         Dill 5 1 2 0
Bellottie 3 0 0 0       Malinkey 3 1 0 0
Bashak 3 0 0 0        Coyne 4 0 0 1
Bower 2 0 1 0         Burt 3 1 2 2
McKenzie 0 0 0 0    Yeo 3 0 1 1
Nagy 3 1 0 0            Stromack 2 0 0 0
T Sito 3 0 2 1           Piwinski 0 0 0 0
Stolarski 3 0 0 0       Reid 2 0 1 0
Bracey 2 0 0 0         Nacarato 0 1 0 0
Sunagel 2 0 0 0        Bell 3 0 0 0
Mandula 1 0 0 0       Slone 3 1 1 0
Jones 0 0 0 0
        Totals 26 1 3 1     Totals 28 5 7 4
 

Elyria         010 000 0 — 1
Keystone   000 041 x — 5
2B—Dill, Yeo. 3B – T Sito, Burt 2. SB—Nacarato. LOB—Elyria 4, Keystone 5. E – Stolarski, Yeo 2, Burt.
            IP H R ER BB SO
Elyria
Bashak   6 7 5 5 2 4
Keystone
Malinkey 5 3 1 1 1 7
Burt        2 0 0 0 1 3
WP—Bashak 2.

Keystone 6, Springfield 1

Springfield  000 001 0 — 1 2 3
Keystone    000 033 x — 6 5 0
Pitching: (S) Cain IP-6, H-5, R-6, ER-4, BB-2, SO-6; (K) Malinkey IP-6, H-2, R-1, ER-1, BB-0, SO-11. Burt IP-1, H-0, R-0, ER-0, BB-0, SO-1.
Hitting: (S) Archer 2; (K) Dill 2 (3b, 2 RBI), Malinkey (RBI), Burt, Stromack.

Hoover 11, Elyria 0
Elyria    000 00 — 0  0 3
Hoover 142 04 — 11 9 0
Pitching: (E) Sito IP 5, H-9 R-11, ER-11; (H) Simpson IP-5, H-0, R-0, ER-0, BB-0.
Hitting: (H) Gerber 2 (2b), Pakenham 2 (2b), Houtz (HR, 4 RBIs), Russ (2b), Warner, Lilly Riccardi.

Tallmadge 10 Wellington 2
Wellington 10 Barberton 1

Barberton 1, Brunswick 0
Hoover 6, Springfield 0
Brunswick 2, Tallmadge 1

Standings

Hoover 4-0
Keystone 3-1
Elyria 2-2
Springfield 2-2
Tallmadge 2-2
Wellington 1-3
Brunswick 1-3
Barberton 1-3