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Knights Fall To Blue Devils In Softball Regionals

By NICK HENTHORN 3 min read

WHEELING - The Wheeling Central Maroon Knights fell to the St. Marys Blue Devils on Wednesday, 9-0, in their winner-take-all game three of the Class A Region 1 championship.

St. Marys' Cali Masters threw a no-hitter against the Knights, her second of her regional series after also tossing a no-no in game one.

"She's a good pitcher," Wheeling Central head coach Buck Davidson said.

"It's been the same thing the past two or three years. We just need to find a way to start hitting the ball off of her."

With the victory, the Blue Devils advance to the state tournament in Charleston

It is the third straight year St. Marys has advanced to the state tournament, each at the expense of Wheeling Central in the regional round.

"I just told the girls to keep their heads up," Davidson said. "When you get this far into the season it takes a little something extra to keep moving on and they've just got to dig down and find the something extra to keep going."

Wheeling Central loses only one player to graduation, all-state centerfielder and three-hole hitter Brook Edge.

"We have a bunch of young girls, we only lose one, so that's good, although Brook played center field and she was a big part of the team," Davidson said. "They work hard, we just need to find a way. That's what they need to get through their heads- being here [at regionals] is not good enough, we've got to find a way to get over the hump."

St. Marys first got on the board with a two-out, bases-loaded walk in the top of the first, and then put up six runs in the top of the third.

Wheeling Central committed two errors in the inning, and the Blue Devils racked up runs on a two-RBI double by Autumn Mossor and two-run home run by Ella Bullman.

Central's defense settled in for a few innings after that, allowing only one hit in the fourth and fifth, but St. Mary's Breanna Price lifted a two-run home run to left field in the top of the sixth to make it 9-0.

Wheeling Central needed to score at least one run to preserve the game into the seventh inning, and loaded the bases with one out, but a pop-up and a strikeout left three stranded and triggered the eight-after-five run rule.

While the Maroon Knights didn't come up with a hit, Bella Rine, Maddie Miehle and Olivia Kiaski reached either via walk or hit-by-pitch.

Central's Josie Frizzell was saddled with the loss, pitching her third complete game in three days. The junior did strike out seven in the game.

Masters struck out nine in the complete game win, also her third straight complete game.

St. Marys (28-3) now joins a state tournament field including Midland Trail, James Monroe, Petersburg and Buffalo.

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