SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Through three weather delays, the last of which spanned 1 hour and 49 minutes, No. 3 seed Ritchie County and No. 6 Man were faced with numerous challenges in Wednesday’s Class A state tournament contest at Rock Field B at Little Creek Park.
Ultimately, a strong two-way effort from Hillbillies’ freshman Mia Johnson made a major difference, as did Man’s ability to respond to adverse weather conditions in a 5-2 triumph against the Rebels.
“We’re playing with a thousand percent confidence,” Man coach Randy Epperly said. “We lost some tough games early in the year and went through some teaching points and they started buying into what we were trying to teach them — play small ball, quit trying to throw people out at home plate, choking up on the bat, little things like that. Now they understand why we showed them all of that.”
The result sends MHS (13-8) into the winner’s bracket, while the Rebels will have to defeat the loser of No. 2 Sherman-No. 7 Greenbrier West to prolong their season.
“When it’s raining like that, a state tournament game should not be played,” Ritchie coach Dave Mossor said. “We have all kinds of time.”
Rindy Perkins’ first-inning single brought home Rocklyn Marcum with the game’s first run and enabled Ritchie (18-10) to gain the early lead.
That 1-0 lead was intact until the fourth inning when Man loaded the bases with no outs courtesy of two singles and a fielder’s choice.
Marcum struck out Madison Wheatley for the first out, before forcing in a run by issuing a walk to Shyann Frye. While that tied the contest at 1, Marcum kept her cool and recorded consecutive strikeouts to minimize the damage and keep the matchup knotted through four frames.
In the fifth, however, Man regained the lead courtesy of a one-out double off the bat of Carly Caserta, who advanced to third via an error and scored moments later when Johnson lifted a fly ball to center that was deep enough for a sacrifice fly.
The Rebels produced a pair of baserunners with two-out singles in the bottom of that inning, but Johnson struck out Cassy Hardbarger to keep her team on top by one run.
Wheatley led off the sixth with a single and was successfully sacrificed to second moments before the rain picked up and lightning surfaced that created a near 2-hour delay.
Upon resumption, Mackenzie Maynard singled to move Wheatley to third base, and she scored on Alliyah Smith’s groundout to short, leaving the Hillbillies with their first multi-run advantage of the matchup.
“I was about to go to sleep,” quipped Epperly. “They were fine. We handled it well. When we came out, we came out supercharged.”
Clinging to the 3-1 advantage to start the seventh, MHS added to it with a pair of insurance runs — the first on Johnson’s triple to left-center that scored Caserta, before Erika Mullins’ sacrifice fly made it 5-1.
“She bats No. 2 in the lineup, but I could lead her off,” Epperly said of Johnson. “She’s an exceptional hitter.”
The Rebels didn’t go down without a fight and Ava Satterfield doubled with one out in the seventh before scoring her team’s second run when Emily Bush prolonged the contest with a two-out single.
Johnson followed it up by getting Hardbarger to hit a ground ball to second for the final out, allowing her to wrap up a complete game with nine strikeouts, four walks and seven hits surrendered. She also had two of her team’s seven hits, while scoring twice and driving in a pair.
“She’s come through for us a lot this year, and this is her first experience with this atmosphere,” Epperly said. “I knew it would be overwhelming at times, but she seems to have a knack to put that away when she really needs to. She was super out there today, because people don’t understand the pressure on a 15-year-old girl going out there and performing in front of all these people.”
Bush and Perkins had two hits apiece to pace the Ritchie attack.
“We had a couple of good hits,” Mossor said, “but just couldn’t get it going.”
Marcum struck out nine and walked three in a seven-inning effort.
“She’s a good pitcher,” Epperly said, “but our girls have a lot of confidence up there.”