FOSTORIA — Scoring eight runs and doubling up your opponent is a celebratory evening for a lot of high
school softball teams.
Eastwood, which has now scored at least 10 runs in nine of 15 games, is built different than most.
“Yesterday we didn’t play real well, so we had a little talk about that,” Eastwood head coach Joe Wyant
said of his team’s 8-4 nonleague win on Tuesday. “Today they came back and played with a lot more
emotion.”
The Eagles opened Wednesday’s game with a four-run inning, including a Carleigh Coffield home run, and
Ashley Hitchcock struck out nine of the first 10 Fostoria batters en route to a 14-0 five-inning
Northern Buckeye Conference win.
“We were getting a little stagnant. We played six games last week, we played Monday, Tuesday, we were
getting tired,” Wyant added. “We came out right away and hit the ball.”
Eastwood, ranked ninth in the first Ohio High School Fastpitch Softball Coaches Association Division III
poll of the season, improved to 14-1 and 5-0 in the NBC. Fostoria dropped to 3-6-1 and 1-3 NBC.
While the Eagles burst out of the gate with a big first inning, Hitchcock continued to control the game
from the circle.
The senior, who already has a perfect game this season, struck out the side in the bottom of the first
inning. All three batters offered at strike three, but none threatened with much contact at Hitchcock’s
whistling rise ball.
“I throw a rise ball almost all the time. My rise ball’s pretty effective just because a lot of the girls
like to swing up, so they swing at a lot of the high ones,” Hitchcock said modestly.
Hitchcock punched out the side again in the second. Six batters. Six strikeouts.
Eastwood’s ace nearly did it again in the third, but Carmen Bejarano flexed for an elite Eagles defense,
sliding in foul territory near the left-field fence to snag a foul ball for the second out of the frame.
Hitchcock, who struck out the first and third batters of the inning, was in position for another
three-strikeout frame.
“When I’m not having any people hit off of me, my mentality in my head is just keep driving forward,
don’t let up. Because when I let up then usually girls start to hit off me,” Hitchcock, who finished
with 13 strikeouts, said.
“I don’t really get nervous when the ball does get hit because I know my defense has my back at all
times.”
Ana Smith, the Eagles’ centerfielder, later sprinted in and approached the infield dirt to make a catch
to preserve — at the time — another Hitchcock perfect game. Fostoria’s Kyhra Baeder eventually broke up
Hitchcock’s perfect bid with a double into the right-center gap with two outs in the fourth inning, but
Smith nearly tracked that one down, too.
Hitchcock ended the game as she started. Striking out the side in the top of the fifth inning for the
mercy-rule win.
The Eagles’ bats, though, made enough noise for both sides.
Alissa Ray, Hannah Owens and Hitchcock all reached base to open the first inning before Coffield belted a
three-run home run to turn a 1-0 lead to 4-0. Coffield finished with a game-high five RBIs.
Eastwood batted through the lineup in the first inning, and after falling a batter short of doing so in
the second, the Eagles went through the order in a five-run third inning.
“We like to jump out in front and we’ve been pretty fortunate lately, scoring in every inning — three,
four, five runs,” Wyant said.
Maddie Recker, who walked in the second and doubled in the third, matched Coffield with a home run of her
own in the fifth inning and finished with three RBIs.
Eight of nine starters nabbed at least one hit for Eastwood. Ray, Hitchcock, Coffield, Recker and
Luidhardt had two hits apiece in just four innings at the plate.
“We usually take a pitch the first time around, The second time around they have free will to swing off
their heels, or whatever. Through the scrimmages and games so far this year, we’ve had seven girls hit a
home run at one time or another,” Wyant said. “We’re pretty solid; all 11 players I have. It’s tough, my
10th and 11th would start for everybody else and it’s a shame that I have to rotate.”
WP — Hitchcock. Top hitters — Eastwood, Coffield 1B, HR, 5 RBI; Recker 2B, HR, 3 RBI; Ray &
Hitchcock 1B, 2B.
Eastwood 435~02~14~13~0
Fostoria 000~00~0~1~3