North uses eight-run surge to win

An important note for the remaining teams on North softball team’s schedule: Feel free to take a lead on the Rangers, but it’s only going to tick them off.

Host Mentor took a 7-5 lead on North with a five-run fifth inning on April 15.

But the motivated Rangers scored eight unanswered runs in the final two frames to post a 13-7 win in a battle between the fifthranked team in The News-Herald’s Top of the Crop (North) and the sixth-ranked Cardinals.

“We don’t like to be down,” said North senior Jess Dodd. “When we get down, we fight harder. We bring it harder than (the opposing team) does. We do a good job of being underdogs and fighting back.”

Mentor (7-3) appeared to have momentum on its side in the bottom of the fifth when Bella Carcioppolo ripped a two-run double and Abby Haydu belted an RBI double of her own to give the Cardinals a 7-5 lead.

But North was just getting warmed up.

In the top of the sixth, Dodd hit a double off the top of the fence in right to score Madie Cicero and Adri George. Haile Wilson then crushed a two-run homer for a 9-7 North lead.

While Wilson said she

wasn’t sure if her hit had enough oomph to get over the fence, Dodd thought hers did.

“I did. I’m not gonna lie, I did,” she said. “I thought it was over. ... It still scored people. A hit is a hit.”

And the hits kept coming in the sixth, when Dori Sekaniec, George and Dodd all had hits and scored. Two of North’s runs came on wild pitches.

“The girls work hard on being aggressive in the box,” said North coach Taylor Braddock, a former NewsHerald softball player of the year at Riverside. “Early in the season we weren’t doing that. It shows how hard they’ve been working.”

Wilson had three hits, scored three times and had her big home run.

“It feels really good to get one on the road,” she said of her team’s win. “We’ve gotten better and stronger. We play more as a team. This was a great team win.”

Dodd doubled twice, as well. Alyssa McPeek had two hits and three RBI out of the eight-hole in the lineup.

Mentor got sacrifice flies in the first inning from Leah Temple and Haydu. But in the offensive slugfest, the Cardinals’ only other runs came in the fiverun fifth.

“We hit the ball well, too, just not in the second, third and fourth innings,” said

Mentor coach Jo Bondra. “We kind of took those innings off. We knew (North) was going to score a lot of runs today. We had to do the same. We just didn’t score enough.”

Aside from Carcioppolo’s two RBI and Haydu’s two RBI, the Cardnals got a pair of hits from both Allie Loparo and Izzy Coode. “We have to move on from this,” said Bondra, whose team plays a doubleheader with Aurora on April 17. “We’ve been preaching having a short memory. When you play sports, that’s what you have to have. Move on to the next two and then a conference game on Monday.”