photo by: Kim North

Photo by Kim North Martins Ferry seniors, Makayla Cole, left, and Kendyl Brandon hold the Ohio Division V, East 2 District softball tournament runnerup trophy. The Purple Riders fell to Claymont, 3-1, at City Park in Cambridge on Thursday as the season ended at 25-4.

CAMBRIDGE – The old adage that a team plays like it practices went by the boards Thursday.

During pre-game infield practice, Martins Ferry was nearly immaculate. Claymont not so much.

However, when it came time to play, the No. 7 Mustangs (17-12) shocked the second-seeded Purple Riders (25-4) by a 3-1 count in an Ohio Division V, East 2 District softball tournament final on the City Park diamond.

Claymont took advantage of four costly errors by Martins Ferry to score a pair of unearned runs in the fifth and sixth innings, while the Mustangs’ Lexus Blair held the usually potent Martins Ferry bats to just five singles – two by No. 8 hitter Ella Mamone.

“I think we gave it away. Sometimes that happens when you play a good team,” veteran Martins Ferry head coach Jerry Magistro said. “We didn’t hit real good. They took away our bunting and we made a few errors that were routine-out errors. When you make that many errors like that and don’t run the bases real well in a game this tight, that’s what happens.”

Martins Ferry was seeking its first regional appearance since 2010, but it just wasn’t meant to be.

“It’s hard to say anything to them,” Magistro said when asked what he would say to his team that set a program-record for wins in a single season. “They all had their sights set on going to Athens … . It’s tough. I’m going to tell them to not let this one game define what we accomplished during the regular season. We had an excellent year, but I know it’s going to be tough to swallow, but we’ve got nearly everyone returning – except two seniors that we will miss – so I hope that they can use this experience as a learning tool.

“We’ll be thinking about this game for a long time,” Magistro added. “As coaches we made some decisions that were good, but we also made some decisions that weren’t. It was a tough day all around.”

The Purple Riders scored their lone run in the bottom of the second. Keigan Brandon reached on an error and went to second on the first of two sacrifice bunts by Tori Long. With two outs and Brandon on third, she raced home on Alivia Reese’s infield single.

However, Martins Ferry would never touch the plate again despite having plenty of opportunities. The Purple Riders left an eye-popping 10 runners on base, with five in scoring position. They stranded a pair of runners in the second, fourth, fifth and seventh innings, and had a runner picked off second with no outs in the fourth.

Blair, a southpaw, wasn’t overpowering as she didn’t record a single strikeout while walking three.

Martins Ferry’s Maddie Lucas probably deserved a better fate as the junior struck out eight and was charged with seven base-on-balls, but four were intentional. She yielded seven hits, six singles and a double.

With Claymont leading 2-1 with a runner on third and one out in the sixth, Lucas was instructed to intentionally walk Peyton Lawhun and Hayden Lawhun, but Riley Fair made the strategy backfire with a run-scoring single to center.

A short-to-home-to-first double play prevented further damage.

Martins Ferry threatened in the seventh with runners on first and second, but a slow grounder to first ended the game and the season.