MAUMEE — Bowling Green’s softball team’s run in the postseason tournament came to a halt Friday
afternoon.
Southview scored three runs in the third inning and added three more in the fifth to come away with a 6-1
Division I regional semifinal victory at Rolf Park in Maumee.
The Cougars (21-6) advance to the regional final against Elyria tomorrow at Clyde High School. The time
of the contest is yet to be determined due to wet field conditions.
“I’m extremely proud of this group,” Southview head coach Jim Zoltowski said. “We kind of stubbed our toe
in the league and when we got to the postseason we talked about five steps to get to the final four, and
this is our fourth one. Don’t think we’re finished yet.” PHOTO GALLERY
BG’s defense was less-than-stellar as it committed four errors, two of which came in the second inning
allowing Southview to take a 3-0 lead.
The Bobcats’ pitcher, Casey Akenberger, cruised through the first inning, throwing only seven pitches,
and she escaped the second as the Cougars stranded runners on second and third as the inning ended with
a strikeout and a ground out to shortstop.
But in the third inning the errors caught up to BG.
Southview capitalized on a dropped ball on a force play at second, an error by the right fielder, and a
passed ball, coupled with a hit and a fielder’s choice to score its first three runs.

“(Southview) put the ball in play today and defensively we just didn’t come with our ‘A’ game,” Bobcat
head coach Jim Cress said. “We made a few throwing errors. A couple of balls that I felt we probably
should have had defensively and stuff like that and we threw a couple of balls away.”
Southview’s aggressive approach at the plate allowed it to spray six hits, and it didn’t walk while
striking out only three times.
The Cougars also got a dominant performance from pitcher Olivia O’Reilly to compliment the offensive
production.
O’Reilly pitched a complete game two-hitter and didn’t give up BG’s first hit until there was one out in
the sixth inning. Both of BG’s hits came in the sixth along with its earned run, an RBI single by Lily
Murnen, which scored Shannon Joseph who broke up the no-hitter.
But other than the sixth, O’Reilly was nearly flawless as she walked none and struck out 12.
The only other base runner to reach for the Bobcats previous to the sixth was Allie Smith, who led off
the third and reached on an error by the shortstop.
“She was hitting her spots and keeping the ball down,” Zoltowski said. “She can throw hard and sometimes
we say she’s effectively wild. But I think she just kind of really, really tried to hit her spots and
just do her job and not go out and feel she’s got to win the game.”
BG, which came into the semifinal confident it could handle the Southview pitcher, never got into a
groove at the plate.
O’Reilly, who is a preferred walk-on at Ohio State, kept Bobcat hitters off balance by consistently
changing speed and location.
“(O’Reilly) got ahead of our girls and she was throwing some outside pitches that our girls were chasing,
so she did a great job of mixing it up and with location,” Cress said.
“Our girls … just weren’t getting the contact and we just needed to be a little bit more disciplined at
the plate. We’ve been working all week about making contact and doing a better job when we get two
strikes on us and we just still continued to chase after the ball at times.”
Both Akenberger and O’Reilly took advantage of an uncharacteristically large strike zone by working the
inside and outside corners, which got hitters to chase what were most likely normally not strikes.
But the large zone didn’t play a factor in the Cougars’ aggressive offensive style.
“We talked about that all week, being aggressive and seeing the ball down because we have a lot of
respect for Casey Akenberger,” Zoltowski said. “We knew that (BG was) going to come with everything that
they had. We knew that we were going to see (the ball) down and be aggressive and try to put the ball in
play and make things happen.”
BG (17-9) hasn’t finished its season just yet. It still has two Northern Lakes League games on their
schedule. It plays Perrysburg next week and it still has to finished a suspended game with Rossford,
which the Bobcats lead 9-2 in the fifth inning.
REGIONAL SEMIFINAL
DIVISION I
SOUTHVIEW 6, BGHS 1
BGHS 000 001 0—1 2 4
SOUTHVIEW 003 030 0—6 6 1
BATTING LEADERS
HITS — (BG) Murnen, Joseph; (SV) Knepper 2, Austin 2, O’Reilly, Martindale. 2B — (SV) Martindale. RUNS —
(BG) Joseph; (SV) Knepper 2, Gerken 2, Estrich, Austin. RBI — (BG) Murnen; (SV) Austin 2, Estrich,
Martindale. SB —(SV) Austin, Gerken, Knepper. LOB — Bowling Green 1, Southview 3.
PITCHING SUMMARY
IP H R ER BB SO
Bowling Green
Akenberger (LP)
6 6 6 4 0 3
Southview
O’Reilly (WP)
7 2 1 1 0 12