Softball: Elyria Catholic rallies for win over Midview

ELYRIA — What was it Yogi Berra once said? "It's not over 'til it's over?" Elyria Catholic took a page out of Berra's book Tuesday, scoring three times in the bottom of the seventh inning to beat Midview 8-7 in its season opener. Midview fell to 1-1. The Middies probably felt they had the game won after a three-run homer off the bat of Halley Dye in the top of the seventh, but EC never gave in. With one out, Lillian Ciryak blooped a triple just inside the foul line on the first-base line and scored on a wild pitch to start the rally. Alyssa Winter kept it going by beating out a grounder to third and wound up at second on an errant throw on the play. Jessica Conner, who already had two hits, drove in Winter with a double and advanced to third on the throw home. It left it up to pitcher Kailey Tomasch, who had socked a homer earlier. She lofted a sacrifice fly to center field to end the game. Tomasch walked the first three hitters she faced in the circle, shook off a wobbly start to earn the win. "Sometimes when things don't go your way, you've got to work through it yourself," she said. "I knew what I was doing after I walked those three girls. I talked to myself and fixed my pitching in my head." It was her homer in the second inning that tied the game, but her teammates managed to have her back all day, scoring a run in the fourth and three in the sixth to set the stage for the comeback. "We really play for each other," said Tomasch. "They could have quit on me like five times, but they didn't." "We kind of do what we always do," said Conner. "We kind of like work together and get loud in the dugout. We feed off each other." Coach Jim Piazza, who's been around the block a time or two when it comes to winning softball games, wasn't surprised. "It was funny that this happened," Piazza said. "We've been talking about adversity and how we handle adversity in practice. It's a credit to those kids that they learned from that in practice and they never quit. They never thought they were going to lose. "I'm really proud. We worked on adversity in practice. We had a practice that was really hard and everyone was failing. When we came back the next day, we saw everything was OK." For Midview coach Cassie Haight, it was a lesson learned, but she was proud of her team. "I was happy with this game," she said. "It was very competitive for us being Game 2. I thought the girls came out here and fought all the way through six, seven innings." Savannah Presser hit a two-run homer and drove in another run with a sacrifice fly for Midview. Dezirae Thomas had a single and an RBI and pitcher Savannah Holcomb struck out six. Contact Tim Gebhardt at 329-7135 or at timothygeb@msn.com.