High school softball: North Ridgeville comes up with two runs in the seventh to slip past Midview

NORTH RIDGEVILLE — It was nail-biting time at North Ridgeville's softball field Tuesday afternoon. The Rangers escaped an upset bid from longtime rival Midview by scoring two runs in the bottom of the seventh to remain atop the Southwestern Conference standings with a 7-6 win under ideal weather conditions. The game was originally scheduled last Thursday but was snowed out. "Big rivalry," North Ridgeville coach Mike Mease said after the Rangers improved to 3-0. "We had to find a way to dig deep and make it happen." Katie Barnhart led off the seventh with a single to left and Autumn Behlke followed with a bloop single to short right field. Daylan Baker lined a bouncer off the first base bag to score Barnhart with the tying run and put runners at second and third with still nobody out. Midview purposely passed Allie Chinchar to load the bases. "We just wanted to stay calm in that situation," Mease said. "We know we have a team that can score runs from top to bottom. We put some hits together and that's where we struggled earlier, getting the timely hit." Midview's strategy nearly worked. Jaylah Howard grounded to third and Lily Thomasheski got the force on courtesy runner Abby Viancourt at home for the first out. Gianna Vazquez duplicated the ground ball on the next at-bat but Thomasheski's throw home drew catcher Lilly Armold off the plate, scoring Baker with the game-winner. "I was trusting in our pitcher and the rest of my teammates to just play good defense and try to keep the ball in the infield," said senior shortstop Emma Barnes, who earlier delivered a clutch two-out, two-run single for the Middies (2-2). "We fought a long, hard game and it was a lot better than what we played (Monday in a mercy rule loss to Amherst)." Midview took a 6-5 lead in the top of the seventh on back-to-back doubles from Armold and Tomasheski to start the inning. Tomasheski moved to third on wild throw from the outfield but Barnhart struck out the next three hitters to keep it a one-run deficit. It was Baker's sinking liner off the bag that had fans on both sides holding their collective breath. Did it hit the white bag or the orange one that would have been foul? It was ruled a fair ball by the home plate umpire. "It is a game of inches," said veteran Midview coach Mike Ives, who came out to question the call. "I'm playing with house money. I had to ask. I knew it wasn't going to get changed because he's the only one who has the call. He's not asking for help." Ives was certainly proud of the performance in spite of losing. His Middies bounced back from a 3-0 deficit to take a 4-3 lead in the top of the fourth. Barnes' single started the scoring and Taylor Yaksic followed with a triple over the right fielder's head. Midview scored a single run in the fifth to lead 5-3 off hits by Thomasheski and freshman pitcher Jasmine Willis. Behlke put her team on top with a two-run, no doubt-about-it homer in the first inning. "It was a really great feeling," said Behlke of her firs- inning blast. "I just saw it and hit it. "Basically we just kept trying to come back. All the way through — never give up. Keep pushing, keep pushing. We came out with the win." Contact Tim Gebhardt at 329-7135 or at timothygeb@msn.com.