Magical Season comes to end for Lady Fliers

Enterprise sports writer

Canfield crashed the ball and sent Cinderella home early Friday morning at Firestone Stadium in Akron as the Lady Fliers were ousted from the State Softball Tournament 4-1 by the Cardinals. Canfield then won the state title on Saturday with a 6-0 win over Celina.

The Lady Fliers started the season with four freshmen and three sophomores and a junior who hadn't play in two years because of shoulder surgery and turned that into a first ever trip to the state final four, a 24-3 record, a Sandusky Bay Conference title and the fewest losses during a season by a team.

The team was led by coach Marc Marshall who won his 300th career game during the season and assistant Ryan Carter and three senior girls Kaila Strausbaugh, Nikki Bryant and Chelsey Turner who turned the team into a record breaking juggernaut.

"Who would have ever thought that when we put together our team in the spring with four freshmen and three sophomores that we'd still be playing in June?" Marshall said. "Our we optimistic about next year? Sure we are but nothing is a given. Teams will be looking to beat a team that went to state every week and that will make it harder but losing only three players makes us optimistic even though those three players were very good."

The Cardinals scored a pair of runs in the first inning on three of their six hits for the game as the Lady Fliers tried to settle down. They then scored two more runs in the third inning on two hits. One of them a towering homerun by Melissa West to centerfield that will be talked about for years but not for West.

Instead the talk will be about freshman centerfielder Kaylea Griffin who raced back after the ball and ran right through the fence in her effort to catch it. When the dust had settled, the ball, Griffin and two sections of fence were all lying outside of the park and people were left staring in stunned disbelief.

"Obviously we're very disappointed with the loss but we're very happy with the effort," Marshall said. "I think maybe you could tell a little difference in the first inning or two that they had more experience with their eight seniors getting playing time to our two and they were big and strong with outstanding hitters. Still we stuck with it and gave ourselves a chance. Give their pitcher credit. She did a nice job of holding us to one run and preventing multiple run innings. She was a very good pitcher. She could throw, but she also could pitch to her spots and change speeds."

The Lady Fliers who had four hits had a chance to get back into the game in the fourth inning when they scored one run but had a chance for much more.

Strausbaugh led the inning off with a single. Kay Elfring then singled to put runners on first and second with no outs. Aliesha Boonie then fouled out. Lauren Meyer then singled to load the bases with one out. Bryant then hit a fielders choice with Strausbaugh out at home despite flattening the catcher. Nicole George was then safe on an error with Elfring scoring. Griffin then struck out with the bases full to end the threat.

George also singled in the third inning but was left stranded as the Lady Fliers couldn't solve the pitching of winner Tricia Bettura.

"It's kind of an emotional time right now and not just because we just lost," Bryant said. "I couldn't have asked for a better senior season. Just getting this far made me so proud of my team. I never would have dreamt coming into this season that we would have made it to the state final four. It's just amazing. We were such a young team that the seniors had to step up and show some leadership. They were, (laughing), I just don't know how to explain them, let's just say that we had so many good times together the year won't be forgotten. We led them as best we could and to make it this far the whole team had to step up."

Freshman Brooke Billings took the loss from the circle despite giving up only six hits. Billings walked one and struck out one and pitched very well despite the loss.

"We definitely have reasons to look forward to next year with only three seniors on the team," Billings said. "I don't think that we were nervous out there. We may have been a little too excited about getting the game started because non of us had ever been here before. We were just excited and pumped up to play. I think that it's amazing to get here to this game. Everyone on this team is very good. We have the best team around and hopefully we can come back here next year and win it all."

Despite his disappointment at losing, Marshall knows his girls battled hard and had a great season.

"I thought that our girls played well enough to win," Marshall said. "They had six hits and we had four but obviously the big difference was the home run that they hit but even still I thought that we battled back and had our chances. We had runners on first and second with no outs. If they don't throw a runner out or we get a hit in the gap or just a solid hit and we get a couple of runs then maybe the complexion of the whole game changes.

"I thought that our little freshman pitcher did an outstanding job against one of the best teams in the state. She only gave up six hits. We played decent defense. They were just able to string a couple of hits together in the first inning and the homerun. As you could see our centerfielder was willing to run right through the fence to catch it.

"There are a lot of coaches that would like to have had a 5-1 record in the tournament like we did this year. In the end there's only going to be one team happy in Division II and everyone else will be not happy. That said, I don't want to make light of losing because everyone on that field wanted to win and are hurting right now but when you look back we had an incredible season and even though we lost this game we battled just like we've battled all season."