Greenville advances to title game

Green Wave will play at 4 p.m. today for D-II championship.

Give the Greenville AKRON — High School softball team an inch and they’ll take a mile ... or at least 60 feet.

“The quicker we can get them going we can really push it,” coach Jarrod Newland said after the Green Wave improved to 29-4 with a 3-0 win over Circleville Logan Elm in the Division II state semifinals Friday at Firestone Stadium.

“When you put it in play, there are three or four things that can go wrong (defensively) and that’s when we push it.”

The Green Wave started pushing it from the beginning.

Paige Wolter was hit by the second pitch of the game and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Kelly Martin followed by reaching on an error before scoring just behind Wolter on a single to left by Kayla Harshbarger.

Erin Albright’s fly out to deep center scored Harshbarger for a 3-0 lead. That was all the Green Wave would need to advance to the second state title game in school history. Greenville won a state title in 2007.

“The last game (regional final) wasn’t my best game,” Harshbarger said. “I wanted to push myself. The first hit, I wasn’t trying, I was just swinging to get a hit.”

“We might have had some jitters,” Logan Elm coach Jeff Dupler said after his squad finished 20-11. “They forced us into some errors and defense had been our strength. They forced us into lapses and we just couldn’t get back in it. They are too strong.”

Greenville’s Ashley Hanes struck out two. Fifteen outs were recorded by the infield.

“I know I have a great defense behind me,” Hanes said. “I know they will put their full effort into every play and that is a stress reliever right there.”

Greenville will face last year’s runner-up, LeGrange Keystone, at 4 p.m. today in the title game.

“The ball doesn’t know who is supposed to win,” Newland said. “It will take all kinds of spins and bounces. You are going to have two great teams out there battling; we are going to line up and play.”