BERKLEY TOPS ROYAL OAK, FERNDALE TO WIN TITLE
Bears claim second district title in a row with wins
On the face of it, it might appear that the schedule-makers in the Oakland Activities Association did Berkley no favors this spring, backloading the Bears’ schedule with all the contenders in the OAA White in the latter half of May.
Berkley went from 16-6 on May 10 to a 17-14 squad entering the postseason, thanks to a late-season slide where they lost eight of nine.
In reality, though, that gauntlet toughened the Bears up at just the right time, getting them ready for defending last year’s district title.
They did that just fine on Friday, beating district host Royal Oak, 13-2, in five innings in the first semifinal, then taking care of Ferndale,
10-3, to claim a second straight wooden mitten.
“Sure does (feel good). I mean, that was the goal of the season was to repeat this year,” said Berkley coach Billy
Butash. “That was the way I was hoping to play. It’s what we did last year, we played the better teams at the end. And it just kind of worked out with the OAA schedule for us
to play those teams. And those are the teams that prepare you for wins like this.”
The Bears (19-14) advance to next weekend’s regional at Farmington Hills Mercy, taking on St. Clair Shores Lakeview in one of the regional semifinals. Lakeview was a 15-0 winner over Warren Mott in the championship game of the Warren Cousino district on Friday.
It was one big inning that broke open each game for the Bears, as they went once through the lineup, then started to blow it open the second or third pass through the order.
Against Royal Oak, it was a 13-batter, nine-run third inning that broke it open. Grace Elliott and Lily Downes had RBI sin
gles in the frame, while Ella Schneider had an RBI double, but the Ravens (1227) helped, too, committing a total of 10 errors behind starting pitcher Danica Schmitt.
Mia Hubbell drove in a run in the Bears’ two-run fourth to get to the mercyrule limit, and Downes closed it out with a 1-2-3 fifth in the circle.
In the title game, the Bears matched Ferndale (12-14) with two runs each in the first, jumped ahead with a two-run second — highlighted by a Mia Hubbell RBI triple — then broke it open the third trip through the order with a 10-batter, four-run fourth inning. Brooke Bommarito and Kaytlyn McPherson both drew bases-loaded walks, while Eliott singled in two more runs. Schneider added an RBI triple in the seventh, scoring on a Lily Keefe RBI single.
The Bears couldn’t quite get to the mercy-rule limit, especially not when the Eagles scored one in the sixth — on Emma Chiotti’s RBI double — to bring it back to 8-3 at the time.
For Ferndale, which lost 17-2 in four innings and 20-5 in five the first time the Eagles played the Bears, making Berkley play seven innings was in itself a step forward.
“I feel that this was a huge accomplishment for my team, for us. And I feel like it was an opportunity to understand what it feels to fail forward. With loss, there’s growth — you can’t have growth without loss. And historically, this has been a very hard team for us to be to go past three, four innings, and we took them to seven. And it was a very competitive game, and we’re all walking off the field with our heads held really high,” Ferndale coach Pedro Kasperek said. “Not only are they learning something from it, they’re asking ‘When can we play again?’ As a coach, all I can ever ask for is respect, commitment and effort, things that you can control. … And these girls have exceeded my expectations of all those terms.”
Ferndale beat Detroit Renaissance, 10-1 in the other semifinal game, as Kirsten Zvibleman took a no-hitter into the sixth inning. Phoenix leadoff hitter Paige Adams drew a one-out walk in the sixth, stole second, and came around to score on two wild pitches to break up the shutout, then Joelle Wimberly broke up the nohitter one pitch later.
Zvibleman scored three times in her own cause, slashing an RBI triple in the Eagles’ four-run sixth inning. Izabella Mendoza scored twice and drove in two runs for the Eagles, as well.
It took a bit for Berkley’s offense to get going in the opener, as Royal Oak jumped out to a 2-0 lead on an RBI triple by Jordan Eyster — who rewrote the program’s offensive record book this season — and a sacrifice fly by Lucie Coburn.
The defensive woes after that will be a lesson for the Ravens, as well.
“You can’t give up that many unearned runs and expect to walk out of a game with a win. … I think honestly, we came ready to play, we came ready to take it to that team. It’s just when the pressure was on, we were rattled, and we were giving up those little mistakes and those little errors. And eventually they add up and it just didn’t go our way,” Royal Oak coach Katrina Ellis said, noting the motivational value of the loss. “That was my message to them. And I told them, ‘Yep, it’s gonna hurt and it should.’ But the last thing I said to them was ‘You’re part of something bigger than yourself. We’re building a program here and what you did this year what you did today, that matters and 10 years from now, when you look back, and you see the program, that it started with you and it started today and it started this year with this team.’”