Carson Francis, Staff Writer
Southern Ohio Sports Authority is presented by OhioHealth.
ATHENS — Nothing special, nothing fancy.
Just taking care of the task at hand.
Piketon quickly jumped out to an early 5-0 lead in a Division V district semifinal at Ohio University on Thursday, and never looked back from there.
Aided by a three-hit, seven-strikeout, complete-game shutout in the circle from Saydi Childers, the Redstreaks (26-3) cruised their way to an 8-0 defeat of Portsmouth and punched a ticket to their second consecutive district final.
“With all the upsets I’ve seen so far, I told the team that we needed to focus in and start off hot,” Piketon coach Mark Blakeman said. “We scored five runs in the first inning and we accomplished that. We win the games on the field and not on paper, and we started off really well and put the game away early.”
CREDIT: Derrick Webb/SOSA
In the opening frame, Childers retired the side with three strikeouts. Then, the ‘Streaks wasted no time opening the floodgates with their bats.
With one out, Jaylin Forbes doubled into centerfield before Briar Penwell singled and Addy Blakeman walked to load the bases. From there, Ava Ricer would ground a ball to first, where Portsmouth’s attempt to throw the lead runner out at the plate was unsuccessful.
Reese Shanks then smoked a two-run double before Kenley Maynard drove in another pair with a single, capping off a five-run first inning.
“I think we kind of focused on getting out in front, because last time we played [Portsmouth], we started hitting late and that ended up biting us,” Addy Blakeman said. “We just focused on getting out in front and making sure we didn’t lose that lead.
Piketon continued scoring in spurts in the second where Aubrey Heath led off with a double. She then advanced to third on a flyout before scoring on a wild pitch, extending Piketon’s lead to 6-0.
Childers sat down the Trojans in order in both the third and fourth innings, and her teammates got their bats fired up once again
Forbes began the bottom of the fourth with a walk and, two batters later, Blakeman played long ball, sending one over the wall in left field for a two-run homer, pushing Piketon’s advantage to 8-0.
And put simply, that’s all she wrote.
Portsmouth (14-13) simply had no answer for Childers, who continued to make quick work of the Trojans’ lineup.
Throughout the final three innings, Portsmouth only managed two more baserunners and, after surrendering a leadoff single in the seventh, Childers sat down the final three batters in order to complete an 8-0 shutout — sending Piketon back to the district title game.
“It makes me feel a lot better knowing that if [Portsmouth] had gotten more than three hits, my defense would have been behind me the whole time,” Childers said. “After the first inning, whenever we scored the five runs, it put less pressure on me.”
Offensively, the Redstreaks were led by Blakeman, who finished 2-for-3 with her two-run blast. Maynard finished 1-for-3 with a pair of runs driven in, and Shanks finished the night 1-for-4 with her RBI double. Ricer would also finish 1-for-4 while batting home a run.
Two of Portsmouth’s three hits were credited to Katie Ankron, while the other belonged to Evanie Wampler-McKinley.
The Redstreaks will move on to Saturday’s Division V district final, which will be back at Ohio University with a tentative start time of 5:45 p.m. They’ll square off with Adena, who knocked off Ironton by a 2-1 final to advance.
“Same recipe. Start early, score early, and put the other team under the gun. When you score early, it puts a lot of pressure on the other team, and then you can relax a little bit,” Mark Blakeman said. “I want to score in the first inning every game, and I know everybody does. But we did that today and we did that last year here. It’s a good recipe for a win.”
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