Making a state-ment
Wildcats breeze to regional title, spot in Final Four
Story from the Tuesday Edition of the
Chronicle Telegram
Making a state-ment
Wildcats breeze to regional title,
spot in Final Four
Bob Daniels
The Chronicle-Telegram
BUCYRUS — In a frustrating turn of events, Keystone loaded the bases with one
out in the first inning Monday afternoon — and left them that way.
Apparently, it didn’t bother the Wildcats.
They put up five runs in the third inning en route to a 7-0 victory over
Lexington for their fourth straight regional softball championship, 11th
overall. The win also lands the Wildcats in the Division II Final Four at
Ashland’s Brookside Park on Thursday.
Top-ranked Keystone (30-2) meets Ashtablula Edgewood (25-3) at 12:30 p.m. in the
first of back-to-back state semifinals featuring teams from Lorain County.
Ninth-ranked Elyria (27-5) is scheduled to tangle with Hamilton (24-6) at 3 p.m.
on the same diamond.
Both Keystone, which won the Division II title in 1999, and Elyria, which
brought home the Division I crown in 2002, are seeking their second state
championships. It is the second time two Lorain County teams have reached a
softball Final Four in the same season. The same schools were there in 1994.
A standing-room-only crowd sweltered in 90-degree heat as Keystone pitcher
Kristie Malinkey hurled a 13-strikeout two-hitter against Lexington’s Lady
Minutemen. It was her 24th win of the season without a loss and tied her with
Amie Leffew (1999) for second on the school’s all-time victories list. Brittney
Robinson, now starring at Kent State, won 26 games in 2003.
Malinkey has now struck out 78 batters in five tournament games, a 15.6 per-game
average. She has 316 strikeouts for the season, moving her past Leffew into
second place behind Robinson (377). And she has 882 strikeouts for her career,
second to Robinson’s 986.
“Kristie’s screwball was amazing today,” said junior catcher Sarah Stromack.
“They were swinging at rises, too, so we kept going with that. We were like,
‘That works.’ She didn’t throw her changeup as much today, but when she did it
was nasty, especially in the last inning.”
Malinkey said all her pitches were working well.
“Coach (Jim Piazza) did a good job of calling them at the right time,” she said.
“I don’t know if the changeup was ‘nasty,’ but they were swinging at it, which
is what you hope for.”
Malinkey had plenty of offensive support. The Wildcats got two hits each from
Kara Dill, Megan Coyne, Kate Yeo, Erica Reid and Stromack. And they got two RBIs
apiece from Lauren Johnson and Stromack.
Stromack might have been celebrating her 17th birthday — which is today — when
her fifth-inning double nearly left the yard. It hit the left-center fence on
the fly and was the only extra-base hit of the day.
Coyne broke a scoreless tie and set the table for Keystone’s big third inning
when she pushed a nearly perfect one-out bunt past Lexington pitcher Holly
Tomaszewski and third baseman Sam Damron. Coyne was nipped at first on the play,
but it sent Dill, who was on with her second hit, running home with the only run
the Wildcats needed.
“I was thinking, ‘I better get this down,’” Coyne said of getting the bunt sign
from Piazza. “He normally has me hit away. I saw the third baseman creeping up
and it was upsetting me a little bit, so I wanted to get it by her.”
It was only the start of a two-out rally.
Jessica Burt and Kate Yeo followed with singles to center, and Erica Reid loaded
the bases with her first hit, a single to deep shortstop. Burt and Yeo scored on
Stromack’s single to left. Then Nikki Jenkins, running for Reid, and Courty
Piwinski, running for Stromack, came around on Johnson’s single to center.
“I felt really good at bat,” said the sophomore Yeo, who missed all of last
season with a torn ACL. “I’ve been working on taking the outside pitch in
practice and she was throwing a lot of curveballs. So I was pretty confident
going to the plate.”
Piazza said he was mowing his lawn Sunday when he got the idea to use the junior
Johnson as his designated player, batting for left fielder Ginger Slone. It was
Johnson’s ground ball to the left side that sent Reid and Piwinski home in the
fifth inning when Lexington shortstop Leah Hamman overthrew first base on the
play.
“Coming into the game, I knew I had to be confident because this was my big
opportunity to have a lot of at-bats,” said Johnson, who is not usually the
starting DP. “There were runners on base, I had confidence in myself and I hit
them in.”
Reid is one of several Wildcats making her fourth straight Final Four trip.
“Every year our team has gotten better and I was really hoping to get here this
year,” Reid said. “Everyone was like, ‘OK, this is the year,’ and when we
started playing, everything just meshed for us.”
Stromack said she wasn’t worried after the Wildcats left the bases loaded in the
first.
“We knew we if had the bases loaded, we could always threaten,” she said.
“Honestly, it was just a matter of time before we got them around.”
Keystone 7, Lexington 0
Lexington
Keystone
ab r h bi ab r h b
Hamman 3 0 0 0 Dill 4 1 2
0
Scott 3 0 0 0 Malinkey 1 0 0 0
Damron 3 0 1 0 Reddinger 0 0 0 0
K.Parnell 3 0 0 0 Coyne 3 0 2 1
Tomszwski 3 0 0 0 Burt 2 1 1 0
J.Parnell 2 0 0 0 Yeo 4 1 2 0
Ritchie 2 0 0 0 Reid 3 1 2 0
Soderberg 2 0 1 0 Jenkins 0 1 0 0
Picking 2 0 0 0 Nacarato 1 0 0 0
Bachelder 0 0 0 0 Stromack 3 1 2 2
Piwinski 0 1 0 0
Johnson 3 0 1 2
Bell 2 0 0 0
Jones 2 0 0 0
Slone 0 0 0 0
Totals 23 0 2 0 Totals 28 7 12 5
Lexington 000 000 0 — 0
Keystone 005 020 x — 7
2B—Stromack. SAC—Malinkey 2, Coyne. LOB—Lexington 2, Keystone 8. E—Hamman 2,
Soderberg, Picking.
IP H R ER BB SO
Lexington
TomszwskiL,13-4 6 12 7 4 3 4
Keyestone
Malinkey W,24-0 7 2 0 0 0 13
NEXT UP
WHAT: Division II state softball tournament
WHO: Keystone (30-2) vs. Ashtabula Edgewood (25-3)
WHEN: Thursday, 12:30 p.m.
WHERE: Brookside Park, Ashland
RADIO: WEOL 930-AM