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Coldwater's Madison Wendel celebrates after teammate Claire Steinke followed her with a home run for the second time in the Strike Out Cancer Classic championship game against Fort Recovery at Memorial Park on Saturday.
COLDWATER - For the third straight year, host Coldwater came out on top at the Strike Out Cancer Classic softball tournament at Memorial Park.
This year, the Cavaliers put on a historic showing.
Coldwater hit nine homers over two games, Madison Wendel added to the school, conference and state record books, and the Cavaliers beat Fort Recovery 10-8 in the championship game.
"It was an awesome day," Coldwater coach Kyle Ahrens said. "It really was, considering what we're doing outside of the games and the way we played both our games today. We had some unbelievable performances out of some kids today."
Wendel hit three homers in the second game, setting a Coldwater record for homers in a game. Her third gave her 42 for her career, breaking the Midwest Athletic Conference mark held by Parkway's Haley Hawk.
With a three-pitch strikeout of Kylie Post to start the second inning, she became the 32nd pitcher in OHSAA history to reach 1,000 career strikeouts.
"She was out there smiling and having fun doing that," Ahrens said. "That was the cool part. Our whole team just had a lot of fun doing what we did."
Wendel passed 900 career strikeouts against Celina 12 days before. Since then, the Cavaliers have played seven games and finished two suspended games, and Wendel finished all of those with at least six strikeouts, with double-digits in six of them.
Trailing 4-3 with two outs in the fourth inning, Wendel crushed a solo homer to the light pole in left field, almost exactly where she homered in the first inning. That first homer dropped over the fence; the second one nearly hit the lights.
Claire Steinke followed with a blast over the 205-foot sign in centerfield to make it 5-4, and a walk and two singles brought home another run to pad the lead.
In the fifth, Hailey Stough led off with a walk, Libby Grieshop singled, and Wendel hit back-to-back homers for the second time to make it 10-5.
"It's definitely going in the right direction, and that's where we want it to be with tournament coming up," Ahrens said. "Let's hope they saved a couple of them for next week."
Fort Recovery courtesy runner Kylie Dues rounds third base in the sixth inning as Coldwater pitcher Ava Doll looks on.
Wendel left the circle in the fifth, and Kayla Heitkamp gave Fort Recovery (9-12) a run back with an RBI single off Ava Doll in the sixth. In the seventh, Emma Will led off with a double, went to third on a throwing error, and scored on a sacrifice fly to cut the deficit to 10-6.
Ella Schoen worked a walk, Cali Wendel was hit by a pitch, and Post singled in another run. Britney Tebbe walked, and a wild pitch scored Wendel to move the tying run to second.
Heitkamp hit a fly ball to the right-center gap, but it hung up and Schroyer got under it for the final out.
"We had a challenging day at the plate today, to be honest with you," Fort Recovery coach Carrie Schoen said. "We started out with Marion and we had slow bats to start. It took a little while for us to get those hits going. Once we did, got into the groove, it was much better."
Coldwater (13-10) had to battle back twice after Fort Recovery got to Wendel early on. Will and Ava Grisez led off the game with back-to-back singles, pulled off a double steal and scored on groundouts.
Wendel answered with her first homer and Steinke and Rachel Schroyer singled, with Steinke scoring to tie the game when the throw on the second went into the dugout. Tori Timmerman then put the Cavaliers up with a two-out bloop single that scored Schroyer.
Coldwater's Dana Zahn beats out an infield single as Fort Recovery first baseman Jenna Homan gets the throw in the fourth inning.
Will got the Indians going again in the third, beating out a one-out infield single to start another rally.
"We really hit Madison well at the beginning of that game," coach Schoen said. "We started out well with her, did better than we did during regular season. Then making that adjustment with the change in the pitching was a little bit harder."
Ava Grisez hit a bunt single that spun inside the foul line, and the throw to first was late. Will alertly sprinted to third, and as the Cavaliers threw the ball back that way, Grisez took second.
Schoen hit a grounder up the middle that forced second baseman Dana Zahn to make a spinning throw to first, and though the throw was on time, Schroyer was off the bag. Zahn couldn't field the next ball cleanly, scoring a second run.
"I think we just lost focus for a little bit there," Ahrens said. "Coach (Allison) Braun went out there and got everybody calmed back down, and we got out of it. We got our bats out and went from there."
Tebbe took the loss, pitching the first four innings and giving up six runs, five earned, on 11 hits and a walk.
In its opener, Coldwater beat Sylvania Southview 8-0, with two homers from Madison Wendel and one each from Steinke and Schroyer. Wendel held Southview to a hit and two walks with 14 strikeouts.
Marion Local's Gina Bruns fields the ball against Southview.
Southview beat Marion Local 14-3 in the consolation game, scoring five runs in the top of the third to go ahead for good and piling on six more in the seventh.
Jenna Homan pitched Fort Recovery to a 7-4 win over Marion Local in the semifinals, giving up three earned runs on nine hits and three walks while striking out nine. Fort Recovery chased starter Allison Dirksen with five runs to start the fourth inning, and while the Flyers got three runs back behind reliever Haley Everman, they weren't able to complete the rally.
"We went from a little slower pitching to fast pitching, and then we came to the second game with fast pitching back to slow pitching," coach Schoen said. "The girls struggled. It's really hard when you have to change speeds in the same game, and then two of the exact same games."
On the day, Madison Wendel went 6-for-7 with five homers, drove in eight runs and scored six. Steinke hit 6-for-7 with three homers, five RBI and six runs. Schroyer had three hits and a homer, and of the 10 Cavalier batters who came to the plate in the tournament, eight had at least two hits.
Will went 5-for-7 with two doubles, six runs and six stolen bases. Marion's Allison Dirksen finished 4-for-7 with a double and a solo homer, and Kylie Schoenlein hit a two-run homer for the Flyers in the semifinals.
