Carson Francis, Staff Writer
Southern Ohio Sports Authority is presented by OhioHealth.
ATHENS — Whoever makes the fewest mistakes, wins.
Essentially, that was the message that Adena coach Brad Jadwin shared with his team heading into Thursday’s Division V district semifinal against Ironton.
“We said before the game that the team with the most errors tonight loses this ball game. It’s that fine of a line between who wins and who loses,” Jadwin said.
And when all was said and done, the error column on the Ohio University scoreboard read three for Ironton, and none for Adena. The Warriors (21-8) turned in a defensive masterclass, highlighted by a nine-strikeout performance from Allie Bossert in the circle, which fueled a 2-1 win to clinch a spot in the district title game.
CREDIT: Derrick Webb/SOSA
“I feel like we try to stick together as a team. We’ve prepared for this and we’ve just worked together,” Adena’s Marly Halcomb said. “We work a lot on defense, and when everyone’s on the same page, we all know where we’re going with the ball and we’re talking. It works well.”
Right away, Adena created chaos on the base paths to get on the board first.
With Bossert standing on third, Ironton was trying to nab Jolyn Jett in a rundown between first and second. Bossert took advantage of this and raced to the plate to score while an error was committed on the throw to second, giving Adena an early 1-0 lead.
The early miscue didn’t stop Ironton (18-7) from getting that run right back, though.
Now with two outs in the home half of the first, Duke commit Khamil Martin drew a walk before stealing second. From there, Miley Bias drove her home with a single to knot things back up at a 1-1.
Temporarily, things went into a stalemate from there. But, Bossert did more than enough to ensure Adena would have a chance.
There’s no better example of that than what happened in the bottom of the third inning.
After issuing back-to-back walks, she faced the 3-4-5 hitters in Ironton’s lineup with no outs. But she showed no signs of panic, working a strikeout, a popout and another strikeout, in that order, to retire the side.
“Even if [Bossert] did get down in the count, we all kept her up and she always battled back,” Adena’s Alexis Blankenship said. “She never got down on herself and the team never dropped the energy just because she was down. We all picked her up.”
This gave the Warriors a new spark and it carried over into top of the fourth inning.
With two outs, Kimmy Dalton reached first on a fielding error. Marly Halcomb then rubbed salt in Ironton’s wound immediately after, ripping a double into the left-center field gap that allowed Dalton to score all the way from first and put the Warriors ahead 2-1.
Halcomb wasn’t done yet, either.
Ironton threatened to score with runners on first and second and two away in the home half of the fifth, but Bossert forced a grounder into the glove of Halcomb. The junior proceeded to throw the lead runner out at third to retire the side and prevent any further damage.
The Fighting Tigers still tried to break even in the final two innings, but Adena’s defense continued to hold its ground.
With a runner in scoring position and one away, Adena ended the bottom of the sixth with back-to-back groundouts to Josie Mallow at second base.
Ironton then saw one last opportunity in the seventh as the tying run stood in scoring position with the winning run at the plate.
But not wanting to shy away from the moment was Bossert, who delivered the knockout punch in the form of a pair of strikeouts to slam the door on Ironton’s comeback efforts, sealing a 2-1 victory and earning a spot in a district championship game.
“[Ironton pitcher Ava Bihl] pitched a heck of a game tonight, and Allie Bossert pitched a heck of a game,” Jadwin said. “[Ironton] had the go-ahead run at the plate, going to Duke, and I told Allie to pitch to her. I told her to keep the ball down and away from her and see if she chases. Fortunately, for us, she chased.”
Bossert allowed just one run on five hits and struck out nine batters while going the distance in the circle. In addition, she went 3-for-4 at the plate while coming around to score. Halcomb would finish 1-for-4 with her RBI double. Blankenship was 1-for-3 with a double, and Jett went 1-for-3 with a stolen base.
For Ironton, Bihl pitched all seven innings, surrendering two unearned runs on seven hits while recording 10 punch outs. Layla Townsend went 2-for-3 at the plate, and Bias finished 1-for-3, driving in her team’s only run.
Adena will be back in action in a Division V district final at Ohio University at 5:45 p.m. on Saturday evening. There, the Warriors will square off with Piketon, who knocked off Portsmouth by an 8-0 final to move on.
Piketon beat Adena in both meetings in the regular season by 21-19 and 4-3 finals.
“Piketon is on short rest, too. They just played right before us. It was a two-run game the first time and a one-run game the second. We’re not going to fool each other,” Jadwin said. “These guys have worked their tails off all year long, and a lot of times when you lose those close games, it can go south quick. But they’ve stuck together as a team and battled, they’re a fun group to be around. They care about each other, and we’re just going to play and have fun.”
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