Owens’ grand slam in her return leads Madonna
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WHEELING -- A persistent Madonna team would not be denied in their OVAC 1A semifinals game against Cameron on Monday, pulling ahead every time the Dragons would catch up in an 8-6 win.
Cameron had come back to tie the game on two occasions, 2-2 and 4-4, coming into the bottom of the sixth inning, but one swing of the bat put enough distance between the Blue Dons and their opponents with two outs and the bases loaded.
Madonna's Madi Owens launched a grand slam to center field to put her team ahead 8-4 with the play of the night.
"When we took the lead back we started with two outs and nobody on," Madonna head coach Jason Backel said. "But our girls just battled to get on, and then we had a big hit by Madi Owens."
The four-run bomb was the first of Owens' season- which started Monday.
Owens played her first game of the year for Madonna in their semifinal game against Cameron, just now returning to the team after breaking her foot during basketball season.
"She was out for nine weeks and she was just released today by her doctor," Backel said. "She comes up with a grand slam in her first game back to win the game. It's huge."
Cameron tried for a two-out rally in the top of the seventh, Brooklyn Pekula smacking a two-run double to left center and making it an 8-6 ball game, but with the tying run at the plate, a fly out iced it for the Blue Dons.
"We made a couple mistakes baserunning, and a couple fielding errors," Cameron head coach Erika Whipkey said. "They had a nice couple hits and they scored on those, and the girl hit the ball out and that hurt us. We scored two more runs but we fell short at the end."
Madonna's Kendall Ryan had broken a 2-2 tie in the fifth inning with a full-count double which went over the left fielder's head and drove in two, but Monday was a game in which Madonna had to keep working to pull away thrice from a Dragons team that kept closing the distance.
"We've been in this semifinal the last two years and we've taken a couple of bad losses," Backel said. "This year was different, we've got a little bit of experience, we're junior and senior-laden. We came back and we beat a good Cameron team who beat us earlier in the year."
Cameron took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first but Madonna put two on the board in the bottom of the second to lurch ahead.
Kendall Ryan was the winning pitcher for the Blue Dons, striking out 11 in a complete game.
The Blue Dons, the No. 2 seed, will face top-seeded Conotton Valley for the OVAC 1A championship on Saturday at 10 a.m.
"I know Conotton Valley's a three or four-time OVAC champion," Backel said. "They've got a fantastic ballclub and a Division-I pitcher who's going to Bradley if I'm not mistaken. They're a sound team, and we're excited to play them. We're going to battle with them and we're going to do our best."