photo by: Andrew Grimm

Oak Glen's Addie Smith reacts in the on-deck circle to Macy Hartung crossing home plate for the winning run

NEW MANCHESTER — Two meetings between county rivals. Two instant classics.

A week after losing a heart-breaker on a walk off in extra innings at Weir High at week prior, the Oak Glen softball team got some revenge with a walk-off victory of their own over the Red Riders Wednesday night.

After the first two batters, the No. 8 and 9 hitters in the order, singled to start the bottom of the seventh, the top of the order came up with a chance to end it and Riley Bruce did just that as she sent a hard-hit ball to center, so hard it popped out of the glove of the outfielder.

Macy Hartung, who led off the inning with her only hit of the day, raced home to give the Golden Bears a 3-2 victory. The final score was the same score as the first meeting, this time with the victors swapped.

“It was another great game,” Oak Glen head coach Sherrie Garner said. “These are two teams with very experienced groups, very good senior and junior classes and lots of good competition. They have battled each other. It’s nice to be able to come out with the win in the last inning.

“It was a great pitching duel between the pitchers and you just have to keep battling … Riley had the winning hit, but it doesn’t work like that if (Macie Hartung and Mikalyn Balch) don’t get on base. Our girls did a good job of putting the ball in play and giving ourselves an opportunity to win.”

The win is the third-straight for the now 11-6 Golden Bears, fourth in five games since the loss in the first game with Weir High.

Mattie Carney went the distance for Oak Glen, firing eight strikeouts against one walk. After giving up a leadoff homer to Weir’s Eliza Utt, she limited the Red Riders to seven singles the rest of the game.

Weir High, which suffered its third-straight defeat after a 9-0 start, did have eight hits in the game, but left runners in scoring position in the fourth and fifth and had a miscommunication allow Oak Glen to tie the game in the fourth.

“You gotta give them all the credit, in that last inning they did all the things we didn’t do,” Weir High head coach John Leary said. “We had runners on second base multiple times with one out or less and didn’t get them in, didn’t even get them to third. You have to give credit to their pitcher, but we have to execute better. It’s basic fundamentals, they did it tonight and we didn’t. They outplayed us, plain and simple. You tip your hat to them; they executed when they had to.

“It’s frustrating because we had opportunities and didn’t take advantage of them.

“In two games we’ve both scored five runs, both won on walk-offs. We’ll see if we see each other again in OVACs.

“We’ve dropped three in a row to really quality teams, but we also don’t feel like we played well. Now we’re going to find out how we respond to the adversity, test our mettle a little bit.”

After Utt’s blast in the first inning, Oak Glen responded in the bottom of the first when Danica Holden hit an RBI single to knot the game at 1-1.

That remained the score until the fourth when Bella Weber’s RBI single gave the Red Riders the lead back at 2-1.

In the bottom half, Oak Glen again answered. Neveah Heath put a ball in play for a fielder’s choice with runners on second and third, and, after some indecisiveness, Maddie Murray, who had singled and was on third, beat a throw home to make it 2-2.

Weir left two on in the fifth and a runner on in the sixth and seventh, Carney working around a leadoff single in the seventh and keeping the runner on first while she got two pop outs and a K.

Oak Glen had a runner on in the fifth and sixth, but Utt likewise kept them at bay until the late heroics. Utt finished with five punch outs and no walks.

UP NEXT

Weir High: is slated to return home to host Edison today.

Oak Glen: Is scheduled to travel to Wheeling Central today.