High school softball: Keystone has strong start at Wendy's Classic

ASHLAND — Keystone suffered its lone loss of the 2021 season during its opening game at the Wendy's Classic last year before going on to win the program's fifth state championship and finish ranked No. 9 in the nation by USA Today. The Wildcats wanted to start strong at the event this year and accomplished that goal with a 9-2 victory over Kings Mills Kings on Friday night. Keystone (9-1) looked sharp out of the gate as starting pitcher Lily Cassell threw her first 18 pitches for strikes and the Wildcats scored four runs in the first inning. "We wanted to go in and we wanted to pound them hard, and that's exactly what we did," Cassell said. "Me and Coach (Doug) Cooper talked about the game plan prior to going into games like this and, especially here at Wendy's, we want to come out and we want to show our best stuff and come out with the win." After Cassell struck out the side in order in the top of the first, Keystone wasted little time giving her a lead to work with. Dana Pace walked to lead off the inning, then scored on Cassell's triple down the left-field line. Cassell came home on Hannah Gurich's infield single, Bella Minisall reached on a bunt single and both scored on Delaney Peters' single to right-center. "It's a lot easier as a pitcher when we have runs on the board," Cassell said. "All the teams here, they're all good. So when we put runs on the board it's insurance for us, which is nice as a pitcher." Keystone added to its lead in the fourth. Pace reached after smacking a line drive off the pitcher's glove and Kennedy Kerr followed with a liner off the glove of the shortstop. Cassell hit a sacrifice fly before Gurich singled to right field to make it 6-0. Kings (4-3) answered with its best inning in the sixth. Peters, who relieved Cassell to start the inning, hit leadoff batter Eden Lenney, walked Madison Williams and gave up a soft single to shallow center to Natalia Marcano to load the bases. Abigail Noble's single to right field drove in both of the Knights' runs. "I felt really good at that point," Kings coach Mary Ellen Bonner said. "I felt we were in the game, I felt we did a really good job. But you can't open the door for a good team like Keystone. We gave them opportunities, so we have to play smarter." The Wildcats ended the Knights' momentum by slamming the door defensively. After Peters induced an infield pop-up for the first out, Keystone got out of the inning with a double play. The Wildcats turned three double plays in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings. "That sure helped fight them off a little bit when they thought things were happening for them," Cooper said. "Knowing our kids are out there and have each other's back, and they're always willing to make the next play and not fall asleep out there, it feels pretty good. The energy was there, the confidence was there and you could see we were rolling pretty well." Keystone answered Kings' two runs with three in the bottom of the sixth. Pace singled to right-center, advanced to second on a passed ball and scored on a Kings error. Abby Pace reached on the error, Gurich was hit by a pitch and both scored on Jalyn Owca's double down the right-field line. Keystone banged out 10 hits from the first seven batters in its lineup. Offense hasn't seemed to be a problem this season even though it was the main question mark after the Wildcats graduated its top three hitters last season. "Yeah, we're not talked about as much as we were last year," Cassell said. "But it's still Keystone softball … this program is a tradition. Every year we're just going to keep working hard and we're going to keep refueling the fire. That's what I think our lineup is trying to do this year." Contact Shaun Bennett at 329-7137 or sbennett@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him @ShaunBennettct on Twitter.