MADISON TOWNSHIP, Ohio — It wasn’t hit especially well, but it got the job done.
Clear Fork’s Caitlynn Hilverding drove in what proved to be the game-winning run with a sacrifice fly that didn’t reach the cut of the outfield grass and the Colts completed a two-game sweep of Madison with a 7-5 win Wednesday at Madison High School.
With the score tied 5-5, Darian Gottfried led off the top of the seventh with a double to left center and moved to third on Montana Walker’s single. With the infield drawn in, Hilverding lifted a shallow foul ball down the first base line. Madison first baseman Alexis Crider made a nifty over-the-shoulder grab, but Gottfried alertly tagged up and easily beat the throw to the plate. Walker, who took third on the play, would score an insurance run on a wild pitch.
“We tell our runners on third we are tagging on anything in the air,” Clear Fork coach Jeff Gottfried said. “The first baseman made a great catch. It was a big play.
“Getting two in the seventh is a whole lot bigger than one. When you get two, it almost feels like its out of reach with three outs to go.”
Big Night: Darien Gottfried, Clear Fork’s junior pitcher and the coach’s daughter, had a big afternoon at the plate. She stroked a pair of doubles and a triple and scored the game-winning run.
“She’s had to play for her dad for three years. There’s not many kids who know what that is like,” Jeff Gottfried said. “She knows a parent is always going to be harder on their own kid. She had a great ball game and I don’t hand out compliments very often to my own kid.”
Walker, a senior who will play at the University of Findlay, had a double and two singles, scored three runs and drove in a pair.
“She does a lot of things for us,” Gottfried said.
Comeback: Clear Fork (6-0, 4-0) scored a pair of runs in the first and two more in the third. The Colts led 4-1 in the fifth before Madison (1-2, 0-2) tied it with three in the home half of the inning. Crider, Destiny Coleman and Morgan Russell all had run-scoring singles in the frame.
“I think you can take something away from it,” Madison coach Tim Niswander said of the late rally. “The biggest hurdle you have with high school girls is confidence. When they get into that position … for the rest of the year, they’re going to believe they’ve got a shot and I don’t have to convince them. Now we’ve just got to finish.”
New-Look Rams: Madison was without a pair of seniors who sat out the third game of a three-game suspension for disciplinary reasons. Both players will be back in the lineup when Madison hosts Sandusky Perkins on Saturday.
“The next time we step on the field we will look like a completely different team,” Niswander said. “My (everyday) right fielder was playing second and my third baseman was playing short. The kids who filled in stepped up and did a great job.”
Coleman and Russell each had a double and a single for Madison. Kori Braden had a pair of singles.
