By Nicholas Huenefeld

Special to the Sentinel-Tribune

ROSSFORD — Otsego’s Riley Rowe did it all for the Otsego softball team on Wednesday, helping the Knights produce a 3-1 win on the road over Rossford.

“It was a little stressful in the beginning,” Rowe said. “We had a few errors but we came back. The defense played great after that, and we got a few more hits. I think just mixing it up, trying to keep them off balance, going back and forth, seeing what I threw last time and going off that (made today successful).”

The righty dominated an explosive Rossford offense to the tune of 15 strikeouts, which included 10 looking. The Bulldogs entered the game with eight games of 10-plus runs this season, including 59 over the past four games alone.

“She was fantastic,” Colyer said. “She’s close to 200 strikeouts on the year now and has continued a long tradition of outstanding pitchers we’ve had here. It just makes our team better when you have a great pitcher in the circle.”

Otsego improved to 13-6 overall and 5-3 in the NBC, and the Knights have outscored teams 24-1 over the past four games.

“I think it starts with confidence,” Otsego coach Jason Colyer said. “Any time Riley is in the circle, or any pitcher on our staff, we feel we have a good chance to win. You hate to think you only have to score one run, and we’d certainly like to score more, but obviously we are confident in her and that has encouraged her defense to play well behind her.”

At the plate, Rowe also delivered Otsego’s biggest hit of the game, a two-run home run to center with one out in the fifth. Up to that point, Rossford led 1-0, but Rowe changed that after Sabrina Martinez-Buehrer reached on an error in the at bat before her.

In the seventh, Rowe came across the plate one more time for an insurance run as she walked before later coming around on an error with two outs.

The Bulldogs (6-12, 2-6 NBC) took a 1-0 lead in the second. Camryn Almester singled — her team’s only hit of the game off Rowe — and later came around on an error.

Rowe’s lone run against was unearned and she didn’t walk a batter while picking up the win.

“When you face a good pitcher who has a nice rise ball, you have to be disciplined,” Rossford coach Tom Kralovic said. “(Rowe) is one of the better pitchers, and we know that. And it’s good for us in preparing for the tournament to get used to that good pitching. We have to get used to it. We have some younger kids who haven’t seen some good rise balls.”

On the other side, Ary Bond took the unfortunate loss in the circle after allowing just five hits and a pair of walks in a complete game. Only one of the three runs against her was earned, and she struck out three.

“This was promising,” Kralovic said. “Otsego is a good team. They were picked (among the top) in our league, and Jason does a good job. We want to compete, especially against good teams. You never know, we might play them again in the district final. We have to keep looking at these good pitchers and figure them out.”

Otsego has won four straight, including three over the past three days.

“(Today) was a lot of resilience,” Colyer said. “We’re into May, and we’ve been at it for a couple months now. Just resiliency out of all of them. We only had a couple hits there in the beginning, then got a runner on and Riley had a nice home run for us. We just continued to battle for seven innings. and adding one in the seventh was definitely a nice insurance run for us.”