High school softball: Miami East no match for defending state champion

The Lions scored only one run in the first three innings off Miami East ace Jacqueline Kadel, but they pushed across six in the fourth to take a commanding 7-0 lead.

Credit: Marcus Hartman

Credit: Marcus Hartman

The Vikings (24-4) came off the mat by scoring three in the top of the fifth only to see Liberty Union slam the door with a nine-run fifth punctuated by Eden Wilson’s grand slam to center field that ended the game.

The 16-3 final did not indicate the type of season Miami East had, but it did hint at why the Lions have won 40 of their last 41 games — including the Division III state title game last year.

“One through nine, they got girls that can hit,” Miami East coach Brian Kadel said. “I mean, there are no easy outs, and it’s just one of those things. It’s tough to constantly make plays and make pitches and things like that. So all credit for them. They’re defending state champs and No. 1 in the state for a reason. They’re really good.”

His daughter, Jacqueline, ended her senior season 24-4 with 232 strikeouts. For her career, she was 65-12 for the Vikings, but she wore the sting of a disappointing finish on her face as she left the field after a long embrace with her father.

She allowed 11 earned runs and struck out six Wednesday and had one of the big hits in Miami East’s scoring inning.

Her single to center field drove home Jaycee Roeth to make it 7-3 after Whitni Enis’ infield single scored the first two Vikings runs.

Credit: Marcus Hartman

Credit: Marcus Hartman

“She has done a lot for us in this program as far as being a leader and getting the other girls motivated, working hard, but also carrying us to a lot of games,” the coach said. “So I know she took it hard. Wasn’t her best performance today, and she feels responsible for stuff, but (she and fellow senior Alli Rose) had great careers. Without them, we don’t have the opportunity to do stuff we’ve done.”

Liberty Union ace Suzie Schultz allowed only three hits and struck out 10 with two walks while also driving in three runs on a three-run homer in the six-run fourth.

“She’s a good pitcher,” Brian Kadel said. “She’s all-state. She took them to the state championship last year. She’s good. She moves it around. We weren’t really worried about the slow start. We’ve had those before.”

He lamented his team’s three errors though. One led to Liberty Union’s first run in the second inning, and another aided the six-run fourth.

“We were able to start putting something together there (offensively), but it was just on the defensive side, just we didn’t have our best day there. To get to this point here, you’re going to see a good pitcher so that might be a one-, two-run game, but you’ve got to play defense to make that happen.”

He was still proud of what the Vikings accomplished overall.

“The girls have done phenomenal just growing every year and battling every game,” Kadel said. “We started the season 0-2, and we graduated a lot of good players last year and people didn’t think these girls would do as well this year, so they came together and battled and set a school record for wins in the season and won their fourth straight league title, fourth straight district title. So they’re lucky. Hopefully tomorrow they’ll feel better about that.”

Liberty Union coach Shaun Hochradel was happy to see his team come out on top in another regional semifinal, but he said they have made a point not to look ahead all season even as they strive for a return trip to Akron.

As such, he also said he didn’t know much about Shawnee yet.

“One of the things that we have focused since February was process over prize,” he said. “Don’t worry about the prize. Prizes will come. Outcomes will come.

“As soon as we get on the bus ride home, we’ll start looking at Shawnee. I mean, they’re obviously a great program. They’re ranked in the state. They run-ruled the team they played, so we know that that’s the team we have to figure out. So we’ll start doing our homework tonight and see what happens on Friday.”