JEROMESVILLE – Wednesday’s tournament opener provided a bit of a reprieve from the Wayne County Athletic League gauntlet for Hillsdale.
Coming off a one-run loss to Dalton the night before — one that dashed Hillsdale’s hopes at sharing a conference title in the final game of the regular season — the May 13 Division VI sectional championship against No. 31 Medina Christian Academy gave the Falcons an opportunity to fine-tune aspects of their game in a live situation.
They won comfortably 19-0 over the Knights and ended each inning by stepping off the base early.
“Last night I thought the girls played a pretty good game,” Hillsdale coach Nicole Smith said. “Dalton’s pitcher … she’s good, strong pitcher (and) she knew where to throw us.
“We knew this game was going to be a little more relaxed, so we were working on getting good leadoffs, being disciplined at the plate, and working on some defensive strategies. My pitchers were working on throwing some different pitches depending on the count and working on sequencing so we could get ourselves warmed up for the next couple weeks.”
Even throwing new pitches, Macy Mager was unhittable for three innings in the circle striking out nine batters on 33 pitches before Emma Linder tossed the final two innings fanning five on 30 pitches.
“It helped us work on our defense a bit, mostly pitchers and catchers,” Smith said. “We have three talented pitchers on varsity right now, so it’s nice we can work on something like if we have an 0-2 count, we’ll work on a different pitch … and we’re making sure we’re covering where we need to if the ball is put in play.”
There wasn’t much work for the infield and outfield. Jillian Cowger caught a fly out in left field for the only non-strikeout out of the night.
Instead, the rest of the team worked on approaches at the plate with plenty of opportunities to do so. The Falcons sent 10 batters up in all four innings with every single player featured either scoring a run or driving one in.
Emily Smith had two hits, four runs, and three stolen bases, Macy Ritchey was 2-for-2 with three runs, three RBIs, and one walk, Julia Murawski matched her at the plate adding four RBIs and drawing a walk. Joslyn Fickes drove in a trio of runs, Kennedy Fickes scored four runs and drew three walks, Ally Morgan three runs on three walks and two stolen bases, Jordyn Fickes two runs.
“Usually if it’s a 3-0 count we take a different approach, but tonight I told them if it’s there, make sure you have a good swing and we’re making hard contact with it,” Smith said. “It doesn’t matter how fast the pitcher throws, you still have to make hard contact with it to go somewhere, so we were working on staying down and not popping up … focusing on the mechanics. I told them to be disciplined and there were a couple times when I told them to swing, but it was a little high … they said they wanted to stay disciplined at the plate and we didn’t want them to create bad habits.”
The Falcons revert back to league play to close out the week hosting Dalton on Thursday and traveling to Norwayne to finish a previously delayed game the Bobcats lead 1-0 in the bottom of the second. While the WCAL title is out of reach, two quality showings would go a long way for a Hillsdale team that isn’t ready for the season to end anytime soon.
“It allows us to see different things and see where some of our weaknesses are,” Smith said of ending the regular season with Dalton and Norwayne. “We talked (Tuesday) night about what we could have done better, so playing these tough teams then rolling into the tournament is great — that’s what we look forward to doing.”
Hillsdale will then host either Newton Falls or Campbell Memorial on Monday in a district semifinal.
“No one likes to play on Monday, but we’ll be ready after playing these two tough games for sure.,” Smith said.
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This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Hillsdale uses tournament opener as opportunity to continue developing
Reporting by Zachary Holden, Mansfield News Journal / Mansfield News Journal
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