photo by: Kim North

Photo by Kim North Members of the Martins Ferry softball team raise their OVAC Class 3A championship trophy high into the air following their 12-8 victory over Monroe Central Saturday afternoon on chill-filled Lisa’s Field at the I-470 J.B. Chambers Complex in Elm Grove. It was the Purple Riders second consecutive championship.

ELM GROVE – The junior class on the Martins Ferry softball team has had a tremendous amount of success during their high school days. They added to it Saturday afternoon.

With OVAC Championship trophies in basketball (as freshmen) and volleyball (earlier this school year) already sitting in the trophy case, the top-seeded Purple Riders (20-3) made it back-to-back crowns in softball with a stunning, 12-8, come-from-behind victory over No. 2 Monroe Central on chill-filled Lisa’s Field at the I-470 J.B. Chambers Complex.

“This one feels a lot better than last year and the others because we got pretty motivated this year. You hear the great players say ‘sometimes you have to fail before you can succeed.’ When we got beat in the regular season last week and we saw how excited the other team was to win a regular-season game, we got motivated from that point on,” veteran Martins Ferry head coach Jerry Magistro said. “That’s really been helping the girls.”

“This is a junior-oriented team so we’ve got a lot of kids back next year,” he noted. “We should be pretty good again next year because our freshman and sophomore groups are pretty good. However, that doesn’t mean anything until next season rolls around. We’ve still got a lot of softball left this season.”

It marked the second time this season that Martins Ferry has defeated Monroe Central. It did so on Saturday, April 11 by a 7-3 margin high atop the Purple City.

Monroe Central (17-5) jumped out to a 5-0 lead after two-and-a-half innings. The Seminoles scored three times in the top of the first on a walk to Jadyn Miller before Kamryn Winland belted the first of her two run-scoring triples. Winland would cross the plate on a double by Kennadi Jorris. Jorris would race home on Brylee McFrederick’s sacrifice fly.

It became 5-0 in the top of the third when Miller dropped a double down the line in right. Winland’s second three-bagger made it 4-0 and she came home on a single to left by Jorris.

“You’re always concerned when you’re down that many runs, but I don’t give up on the kids because I know what they can do,” Magistro stressed. “To be down five runs and then score 13 says a lot about this team.”

The Purple Riders made it 5-3 in the home half of the third. Ella Mamone reached on an error leading off and Alivia Reese walked. With one out, Makayla Cole lifted a sacrifice fly to center, scoring Mamone. Following the first of three intentional walks to Ohio University recruit Giana Chirpas, Gracie Lucas laced a shot through the left side of the infield to chase home Reese and Chirpas.

Nevaeh Burdette’s solo homer to deep left with two outs in the top of the fourth bumped the count to 6-3, but one swing of the bat in the bottom of the inning highlighted a four-run outburst that put the Purple Riders ahead for good.

Mamone and Reese drew back-to-back walks to start the inning before winning pitcher Maddie Lucas sent a 2-1 offering deep down the line in left to knot things at 6. Two Monroe Central errors and a fielder’s choice accounted for the other two runs. It was Lucas’s seventh roundtripper of the season.

“They pitched some bad ones to her, but they threw one right down the middle,” Magistro said of the three-run blast by Maddie Lucas. “I don’t think they meant to do that.”

Maclarin Craft’s RBI single with one out in the sixth pulled the Seminoles to within 8-7, but five more runs in the sixth by the Purple Riders sealed the deal.

Reese and Gracie Lucas had run-scoring base hits, while three runs scored via errors.

“She’s been doing it all year,” Magistro said of Gracie Lucas coming through with clutch hit after clutch hit following intentional walks to Chirpas who bats in front of Lucas. “Gracie has really come up big for us in a lot of our games this season. She did a great job again today.”

Gracie Lucas singled thrice, drove in a trio of teammates and scored twice. She now has a team-best 39 runs batted in for the season

“Yea it does put more pressure on me, but I’ve been getting used to it because of all the times it has happened,” Gracie Lucas said. “Winning a championship feels great every time we win one because we’ve been doing it over and over.

“We’ve had a lot of girls up-and-down the order that have had clutch hits during the season, and that’s what it takes to be successful,” Magistro added. “Everyone has to do their part. The players have to do what it takes and the coaches did a great job of preparing the girls. Everyone puts a lot of time in.”

Maddie Lucas, who gave way to Monica Tedeschi to start the fifth only to return inside the circle after three batters when Tedeschi was hit on her pitching hand with a liner by Craft, struck out seven, walked one and gave up eight of Monroe Central’s 10 hits. She threw 99 pitches, with 71 being strikes to earn the win.

Winland paced the Seminoles offense with two singles, a pair of triples and two runs batted in. Jorris singled twice, doubled and knocked in three.

Allie McFrederick suffered the loss, striking out two, walking four and giving up six hits and seven runs. However, only three were earned. Winland fanned one and also issued four free passes in relief. She gave up two hits and five runs, of which three were earned.

“The better team won today. We knew going in that you can’t make mistakes against a good team like Martins Ferry, and we did. It showed today on the field,” Monroe Central head coach Paris Yoho offered.

Magistro now has 14 OVAC softball championships. He won 10 at St. John Central and has four in six years at Martins Ferry.