Wayne Trace holds off North Baltimore for district crown

ELIDA — For the first time since the first inning — when it was 1-0 — North Baltimore flirted with taking the lead back from Wayne Trace during Friday's Div. IV district final in Elida The Tigers had the bases loaded with one out in the top of the sixth inning, trailing 5-3. Senior Hailey Lennard was up to bat, after the Tigers scored a run from Meredith Buchanan's RBI triple. A sharp grounder to Wayne Trace's Paige Alber was the start of a third-to-home-to-first double play that killed the Tigers' rally and effectively the game as the Raiders won, 6-3 over the Tigers to win the district title. "Not gonna lie, I was a little nervous there," Raiders' head coach Amber Showalter said. "But our kids played great defense and Paige made a great play at third. But we work hard and expect our girls to make those kinds of plays." Wayne Trace made that play and a few more to pick up the win that advances it to next week's regional semifinal against Hilltop in Clyde. Like a strike-'em-out, throw-'em-out double play in the top of the second, when North Baltimore led the inning off with a baserunner. The Tigers left seven runners on base in Friday's game. In the final inning, the Tigers had first and second with one out and couldn't bring a run across. "We got in position to score a ton of runs, but it just didn't happen. I do know one thing, though, this is a great team that didn't give up," North Baltimore head coach Troy Greeno said. "I'm real proud of this group of girls — it's kind of hard to talk right now because I have a lot of good seniors I'm really gonna miss — but we never gave up." Conversely, the Raiders scored all of their runs when there were two outs. "I actually didn't know that, wow," Showalter said. "These kids are still young in a lot of areas, but we told them that if they had a good pitch, they had to get the bat on it. "Kaitlin Slade came up huge for us multiple times and I think she had half of our runs batted in. They just kept putting the ball in play and battling, which we knew this was going to be a battle." Slade went 4-for-4 with a pair of singles and double with four runs batted in. Although the scoreline will show Tigers' pitcher Ariana Loera gave up six runs — three of which were earned — the junior pitcher kept North Baltimore in the game. She struck out 11 batters and pitched NB out of some tight spots. Especially in the early going. In the first three innings, she stranded four runners. In the first, the bases were juiced, and she allowed two unearned runs, but stranded two runners. Loera also got help from her defense; a perfect relay from NB left-fielder Meredith Buchanan to shortstop Maddy Westgate to catcher Kenzey Young nabbed Wayne Trace's Tatum Tigner at the plate. "I can't ask for more from Ari. She's a junior - I'll get her back next year," Greeno said. "She's great, she's not very big but as you saw today, she can throw it pretty hard. I have a lot of confidence in her and she kept us in a lot of games this year." The Tigers finish their season at 14-12. "I told them to keep their heads up and good luck in the future. Like I said, I have a lot of seniors that I'm really gonna miss," Greeno said. "I love all these girls and I'm thankful for the opportunity to be coaching them and we tried our hardest. "We started off slow, but they continued to come ready to work every single day and we had been at this since November with lifting. This is such a good group of girls and we had a great opportunity here." While the loss of Friday's district title stings, Greeno hopes this is the start of something special in his program. "Even those we're losing five, we have a great group coming back," he said. I'll have my pitcher back, my catcher (Kenzy Young) back, my first (Cadence Andrich) and second base (Alex Greeno) back. Then I have 11 freshmen coming in with two freshmen playing varsity today for us." And maybe with all that talent coming back, the Tigers will be the one hoisting the trophy a year from now. N. Baltimore 1 0 0 0 1 1 0—3 6 4 Wayne Trace 2 0 0 3 0 1 X—8 1 WP—Bland. LP—Loera. TOP HITTERS: (NB) Buchanan 3B, RBI. Jacobs 2-1B, 1B. (WT) Slade 2-2B, 2-1B, 2 RBI; Zartman 2-1B, 2 RBI. RECORDS: North Baltimore 14-12; Wayne Trace 19-5.