According to Hiram Terriers’ softball coach Shannon Schaub, her squad is seeing the ball as well as anyone in the North Coast Athletic Conference now. The Terriers secured the third seed in the NCAC tournament when they split a double-header against conference rival the College of Wooster, winning the first game 8-0 and losing the second one 6-4 last Saturday in Wooster.
“Offensively we just hit the crap out of the ball,” said the first-year coach. “It was nice to see our one through nine, everybody just really attacking early in the count, but I think in the second game we did not start with the best pitching outing for that second game. There was a lot of good things offensively and even pitching defensively that we were doing to help us take into this conference tournament this weekend.”
Hiram (21-14, 10-4) will seek its third consecutive automatic bid to the NCAA Division III softball championship by competing in the NCAC double-elimination tournament, beginning with a game against the second seeded Denison on Thursday at DePauw University.
It marks the fourth straight year that the Terriers have qualified as one of four teams to make the NCAC tournament but it is the first time in Schaub’s coaching career she has made the tournament. In her five years as the head coach at NCAC rival Wittenberg, Schaub’s team never made the conference tournament.
“It is super exciting,” she noted. “When I coached at Ashland, we pretty much made the tournament every year, so it is not like I am not used to making a tournament appearance, it is just that this is the first time in the NCAC. I am excited for it and excited for the girls and at the end of the day it is going to be all about them.”
On Saturday, the Terriers dominated Wooster 8-0 in five innings fueled by some timely hitting and dominant pitching.
Holding a 5-0 advantage in the top of the fifth inning, Hiram scored three runs on two hits and some fielding errors by the Fighting Scots.
Freshman third baseman Dayanna Mekaru singled to center field and sophomore center fielder Danielle Robles scored on a fielding error by sophomore center fielder Ella Wolff. Senior catcher Viviana Macias then delivered a RBI-single to left field and junior shortstop Fayth Kawamura plated Macias when she hit into a fielder’s choice, pushing the Terriers’ lead to 8-0.
Junior pitcher Darian Kanno tossed a scoreless fifth inning, triggering the eight-run mercy rule and finished by throwing five innings, allowing only one hit, striking out four and walking two.
“She was on it,” said Schaub. “She was not just relying on her rise ball, which was her strikeout pitch, she was throwing a change-up, she was just hitting her spot inside and outside and she was definitely the Darian we need going into that tournament.”
Having gotten off to a slow start this season after recovering from offseason surgery, Schaub said Kanno has hit her stride.
Hiram struck early again in the second game but the Fighting Scots assumed control when they scored three runs in the bottom of the first inning to take a 3-1 lead. Schaub said that Wooster hit the ball hard against senior hurler Angel Santellan who allowed four runs (two earned) on two hits and two walks.
She acknowledged that the Fighting Scots were also aided by some good luck, finding the right patch of grass on some soft-hit balls.
“It would be a bloop hit, a bloop hit and it was like they were not hitting anything to the wall,” Schaub added. “They were not gap-shotting us at all, it was some of these hits that you cannot do anything about.”
Despite outhitting Wooster 10-7, the Terriers could not come up with timely hits until the final inning, when they rallied for two runs on a RBI-double to center field by senior Kylie Perez and a RBI-double to left field by freshman pinch-hitter Haven Papineau, trimming the Fighting Scots’ lead to 6-4, but it was too little too late.
Despite falling short of the sweep, Schaub said her team has really taken to the small-ball approach she wanted to instill at the beginning of the season, which has transformed Hiram into a relentless offense.
“They are used to having maybe one big inning and scoring all of their runs and then maybe not scoring in multiple innings,” Schaub said. “I had to sit down and explain to them why I like to do it and why it can be effective so they are bought in now which is what I like to see.”
The Terriers wrapped up their season by sweeping Mukinghum University in a double-header on Monday, improving their record to 23-15 (10-4) before the tournament starts.
