Lexington stuns Mount Vernon on Senior Night, complicates OCC title race

MOUNT VERNON — Lexington has seen its fair share of ups and downs this season.

After finishing third in the Ohio Cardinal Conference last year, the program has struggled at points this spring, ranking sixth out of eight teams coming into the final week of league play.

First, it was the defense. Then, recently, it was the hitting. Lexington (7-9, 6-6 OCC) lost to state-ranked Madison by three runs in March, then fell to defending conference champion Ashland by one run in April

“We’re right there,” Lexington head coach Todd Galownia said.

But the season is far from over. Galownia’s club knows that. And on Monday, as Lexington rolled into Mount Vernon to play the Yellow Jackets, tied for first in the OCC with New Philadelphia, on their Senior Night, the coach had a message for his team.

“We had Senior Night the other night and we didn’t play well. We got beat up. And I said, ‘Hey, then here’s your Senior Night tonight. Come down here and play well,’” Galownia recalled.

“‘They’re still in the league hunt. We have a chance to be a spoiler.’”

Lexington took that opportunity and ran with it.

The visitors jumped all over Mount Vernon, scoring five runs in the top of the first inning and collecting 16 hits total in a resounding 13-7 victory. The result complicates the OCC title race, as Mount Vernon (18-6, 10-2) now sits a half-game back from New Philadelphia (16-4, 10-1) with less than a week of regular season softball remaining.

Mount Vernon will play at Lexington on Thursday before heading to New Philadelphia on Friday; New Philadelphia, meanwhile, will face Madison (16-5, 9-3) twice this week before hosting the league finale. Mount Vernon currently holds the tiebreaker over New Philadelphia, as the Yellow Jackets won the first matchup between the schools, 9-7, on May 4.

THE GAME: Lexington’s dominance Monday started with the game’s first at-bat.

Jillian Morr, the team’s starting second baseman and lead-off batter, hammered a home run to center field, sending the road dugout into a frenzy and giving Lady Lex a 1-0 advantage in the top of the first inning.

The visitors proceeded to rattle off four more runs in the frame. A hard-hit infield grounder from Kylie Thornton scored a runner from third; a liner to right field from Kaylan Lamb plated a runner from second; and a double to the center field fence from Summer Branham scored two more runners, giving Lexington a 5-0 lead.

But the Yellow Jackets did not fold. Mount Vernon’s Kennedi Endsley stole two bases and scored from third on an infield single from Carly Kennedy in the bottom of the first, narrowing the deficit to 5-1.

And after another home run from Morr – this time to left field, well past the fence – Mount Vernon got busy in the bottom of the second.

Lead-off batter Sydney Silvery hit a first-pitch home run to deep center field, bringing the home crowd to life and making it 6-2. Then, with the bases loaded and two outs, Kennedy sent a liner to right that ricocheted off the defenders’ glove, bringing three runners home and drawing the Jackets within one run.

Lexington, however, was not fazed.

Branham sent a deep shot to left field in the top half of the third, scoring runners from second and third and giving Lexington a three-run cushion. She scored from third moments later on a passed ball in the dirt, making it 9-5.

Mount Vernon made a pitching change mid-inning, substituting Miranda Oswalt for starter Addi Parker, but Lexington never stopped hitting. Kylie Galownia rocketed a double to center field, scoring a runner from second and giving the visitors a five-run lead heading into the bottom half of the third.

Mount Vernon moved runners into scoring position in the third and fourth innings, but could not get them home. The Jackets finished the third inning with runners stranded on first and third, and they finished the fourth inning with runners left on second and third.

And Lexington made them pay. The visitors tacked on three more runs in the top half of the fifth, with Kaylie Eichorn sending a grounder to short that scored a runner from the second (the throw to first went wide); Thornton sending a shot to left field that scored a runner from third; and Madyson Taylor sending a hard-hit grounder to short that scored a runner from second (the throw to first went high).

Lexington led 13-5 after the frame.

Mount Vernon scored twice more – on an infield grounder from Kennedy, plating Hailey Rudrick from third in the sixth; and a triple to center field from Rylee Myers, plating Silvery from first in the seventh – but could not overcome Lexington’s late-game lead.

It was simply too little, too late for the Yellow Jackets, who struggled to keep Lexington off the basepaths and hit Lexington’s pitching duo of Addison Cyrus and Galownia.

“This team’s played from behind a lot this year, and they’ve come back and won most of ’em. And we talked (after tonight’s game) about learning from that. We finally got burnt,” Mount Vernon head coach Ryan Pentz said.

“We didn’t come out inning one, pitch one ready to play tonight, and they finally got burnt. They couldn’t find themselves fighting back into the ballgame, where in the past, this year, they have found ways to get back in the ballgame. And today we talked about (how if) you play with fire, you get burnt. And you’ve gotta come and be ready pitch one, inning one.”

Lexington rattled off 16 hits Monday – a performance Coach Galownia called “phenomenal.” He praised the team for its focus and performance early on, which set the tone for a dominant night on the road.

“Right out the gate, we hit a home run. And we came down here, and we’ve been struggling a little bit. We knew we were close to breaking through on some things. And right out of the gate, we hit and scored some runs in the first inning,” Galownia said with a smile.

“That’s been my thing all year, coming out flat. They’re putting up runs on us and then we’ve gotta play from behind the whole time. And we just kept staying ahead and staying ahead, you know, and hitting the ball. … We had 16 hits. That’s phenomenal, for us to hit like that.”

Morr, who had yet to hit a home run this season, hammered two in her first two at-bats. The junior said afterwards that her team rolled into Mount Vernon feeling motivated and unintimidated – and it showed on the diamond.

“At the beginning of the game, I was like, ‘OK, let’s come out here and beat them. Like, let’s get it on, right here,’” Morr recalled. “And then the game went on, and I was like, ‘OK, we’re kind of doing something here.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, we got this.’

“Everybody was excited to play today. We were ready to go.”

MOVING FORWARD: Lexington, seeded seventh in the Division II Northwest District, will begin its postseason journey Tuesday night, when it takes on 10th-seeded Mansfield Senior in a sectional final matchup.

Lady Lex will round out OCC play with a home game Thursday against Mount Vernon and a road contest Saturday at West Holmes.

Galownia said Monday that despite this season’s ups and downs, his team appears to be peaking at the right time.

“Well, as we started this year, I told ‘em May 9 is when I really wanted to be rolling. And that’s tomorrow night, when we have our tournament game,” Galownia said. “So we’ve been getting better, then we’ll take a step back. We’ve been getting better and then, just the other night, we played Clear Fork and we could just feel it. (We were) right there, right there. They made some plays that took us out of it and we ended up losing.

“And I just said, ‘May 9. This is the week we’ve gotta play for, because this is it. Our seniors only have a few guaranteed games left. So you’ve gotta come out and play every day like it’s your last, because it is for some of them.’

“I think they’re hitting well, we’ve just gotta keep it going. We’ve got our tournament game tomorrow night and then we have Mount Vernon again Thursday, and then if we can win Tuesday, we’ll play again Friday in the tournament. So we’ve just gotta keep playing.”

Mount Vernon, meanwhile, will have Tuesday off before beginning tournament play Wednesday. The Jackets, seeded, seventh in the Division I Central District, will face 36-seed Dublin Coffman in a sectional final matchup.

And then it will be back to league play, where two games in two nights will determine the fate of this year’s OCC title race. The Yellow Jackets are gunning for their fifth conference title in six seasons – a feat still well within reach for Pentz’s club, despite Monday’s loss.

“We still control our own destiny. If we win both games out, we win, at minimum, a share of the conference title. …” Pentz said.

“We’re still in the driver’s seat to control our own destiny. That was the important message that I wanted them to leave with tonight, is knowing that we’ve got two conference games to play and a big chance still in front of us to win a conference title.”

Pentz noted that his team is in this position – a seven-seed in the tournament, still in the conference title hunt – because of the leadership of Mount Vernon’s six seniors, who were honored Monday night.

“I talked about it post-game, when I talked about that current senior class. In a year where we’re extremely young – a lot of sophomores and freshmen out there, on the team – their leadership has meant so much to the program this year,” Pentz said.

“In a year where it was really unknown, because of how young we were, they have found ways to help lead us to 18 victories. When we came into this season, we had no idea what it was gonna be like. And because of their great leadership, that is why we are where we are today.”