Bradley, Marysville win D-I district titles
Watkins Memorial and Newark also prevail
Andrea Day takes her job as a tonesetter seriously, and with that came some excitement and impatience entering a Division I softball district final Friday.
Hilliard Bradley’s junior third baseman and leadoff hitter lined the first pitch against Olentangy Berlin to center field for a single, scored the only run the eighth-seeded Jaguars ended up needing on a sacrifice fly and added insurance in the third inning with a two-run home run as Bradley defeated 17th-seeded Berlin 4-0 at Pickerington Central.
“I went in thinking they’d want to start me with a strike and I had to set the tone for my team,” said Day, an Akron commit. “We like to start early, and we did today. We knew they had good hitting and good defense and we just had to be better than them.”
Izzy Scaff added two hits and Jillian Meszaros had an RBI single for Bradley (19-5), which won the second district championship in the program’s 13-year history. The other came in 2017.
The Jaguars will play Watkins Memorial in a regional semifinal at 5 p.m. Wednesday at Olentangy Orange.
Bradley pitcher Chloe Sayre relied on her curveball and dropball to scatter five hits, strike out three and walk one.
Newark 8, Westerville North 4
The 10th-seeded Wildcats scored five runs in their final two at-bats to blow open a tight district final against 11thseeded North and capture their first title since 1992.
Jaylen Jackson and Alasandra Spears each had two hits to lead Newark (21-8), which fell behind 2-0 in the top of the first. All three North errors led directly to Wildcats runs.
Sarah Sickels’ two-run single highlighted a three-run second inning for Newark. Mallory Back drew a basesloaded walk and Meah Morris added a
two-run single in the Wildcats’ three-run fifth inning to make it 6-2.
Marysville 3, Lancaster 2
Tareyn Born’s two-run single in the first inning, followed by an RBI single from Sienna Hutchins, gave the fifthseeded Monarchs all the runs they needed to repeat as district champions.
Born allowed only one hit, walked one and struck out five to advance Marysville (24-4) into a regional semifinal against Newark at 2 p.m. Wednesday at Orange.
Abri Schmutz and Haley Winans each had two hits for the Monarchs.
Watkins Memorial 6, Mount Vernon 1
Ally Langwasser and Jordan Wycuff had three hits apiece and Mckayla Jellison homered as the top-seeded and topranked Warriors (26-1) pulled away from the seventh-seeded Yellow Jackets (21-8).
Pitcher Carsyn Cassidy, a Pittsburgh commit, struck out 12, walked one and allowed two hits as Watkins Memorial captured its third consecutive district title.