Centerville one win away from first final four softball berth for second straight year

A clang followed the crack of the bat as Carr’s line drive hit the scoreboard in right-center field. The two-run home run in the second inning gave Centerville a 3-2 lead, but the Elks needed three more clutch hits to beat Mason 6-5 in a Division I regional semifinal at Indian Hill High School on Wednesday.

For the second straight season, Centerville (16-13) will play for a berth in the state final four. It has never won a regional championship in softball.

“It’s not just for me; it’s for my seniors,” said Carr, a sophomore who leads the team with eight home runs. “They’ve worked so hard to get to this place, and I’m so happy that they get this chance.”

“It means everything,” coach Wendell Hutchinson said. “If you look at our record, we are not a 13-loss team. We lost three Division I-committed players that were just program builders, and I kept telling everybody that we had everything that it took for us to be better than that team.”

Centerville will play Fairmont, which beat Oak Hills 5-3 in the second semifinal Wednesday, at 5 p.m. Friday at Indian Hill. Fairmont beat the Elks twice in the regular season.

Fairmont or Centerville will play No. 9 Massillon Jackson (20-7-1) or No. 2 Perrysburg (27-1) in the state semifinals at 3 p.m. on June 7 at Firestone Stadium in Akron.

Centerville scored in five of the seven innings to defeat Mason, a team Centerville beat 10-3 in the same round of the tournament last season before losing 1-0 to Fairfield in the regional final.

• In the first inning, freshman Caitlyn Belcher gave the Elks a 1-0 lead with an RBI single.

• In the fourth, Carr tied the game at 4-4 with an RBI double.

• In the sixth, Riley Bakan drove in the go-ahead run with a bases-loaded sacrifice fly.

• In the seventh, Belcher hit a home run to left to give Centerville a 6-4 lead.

The Elks gave up a run in the bottom of the seventh but held on when third baseman Hannah O’Conner fielded a ground ball and dove to tag third base and record the final out of the game.

“We just believed all along,” Hutchinson said. “The girls felt like they had a chance to win. When the bracket came out, we knew we were going to have to play Mason again in the regional semifinals. We weren’t shy about it. We really thought that we could play with them. They’re a great team, and they put so much pressure on us with those lefty slappers. We tried all kinds of defenses.”

In the end, Hutchinson isn’t sure if his defensive strategy helped, but it made him feel better to try something. His hitters helped even more.

Carr drove in 23 runs as a freshman and now has 31 RBIs as a sophomore.

“She is as good a player as there is anywhere,” Hutchinson said. “She is amazing. Her natural position is outfield, but she plays shortstop as good as anybody around. She could play in college at that position.”

Fans used a familiar chant — “She’s a freshman!” — after the home run by Belcher. It turned out to be the game-winning hit.

“The whole plan was just to keep pressure on them by scoring runs,” Hutchinson said.