Onaway stops Posen in the district title game

by Peter Jakey– Managing Editor

The scrappy Onaway Cardinal softball team, led by their senior pitcher Tarci Amyotte, who pitched 18 innings of shutout ball in Saturday?s district tournament, ended the season of the 5th ranked Posen Vikings (29-5) in the district title game. The tournament featured four of Division IV?s top 10 teams. Only one would survive and move on to the next round at Johannesburg-Lewiston. Posen knocked off the highest ranked team in Saturday?s tournament, 4th ranked Hillman, by a score of 3-1, to set up the district championship game against Onaway. The Cards battled Rogers City into extra innings in their semifinal before moving on. Onaway got runners on early and put the pressure on the Posen defense. The Cardinals would score one run in the top of the second and two more in the third to go up 3-0. The first run came in after a single and stolen base by Danielle Chapman. She scored on an error by the first baseman. The next inning, Onaway?s leadoff batter walked.

WITH ONE out, Danielle Cleaver singled to put runners on first and third. Cleaver stole second to put two runners in scoring position. A sharp grounder by Chapman to starting pitcher Jenny Ciarkowski hit off her glove and dribbled away, just out of her reach scoring a run to make it 2-0. Onaway made it 3-0 when a grounder to first was not handled cleanly. Onaway would never relent the momentum. Posen could never get anything going offensively either. Three times the Vikings got their leadoff runner on board, but didn?t get runs in. Their best scoring threat came in the bottom of the fifth inning with the Vikes trailing by only three, with runners at second and third with two out. The next batter struck out to end the inning. Two innings later, Onaway scored two insurance runs to give them the win, 5-0. It is Onaway?s second softball district championship, and third in girls sports this school year.

?THEY CAME out and they won the ball game,? said Posen coach Glenn Budnick. ?They came out and they earned it. They?re a good program and they showed it today on the field.? The Vikings kept battling and had two runners on in the final inning, but the Cards preserved the shut out by getting the final out. ?I think when we weren?t scoring runs right away, and Onaway went up early, it was hard for our girls to come back from that,? said Budnick. ?Onaway shut us down when they needed to and we just did not get that two-out hit when we needed it.? Onaway advances to play Rapid River in Saturday?s regional semifinal. In the early district game against Hillman, the Vikings received steady pitching from Ciarkowski and key hits from Megan Pieczynski. The score was 0-0 through three full innings, but Posen seemed to have an air of confidence, even with Jessica Tebo on the mound. Posen did not get the scoring going until the bottom of the fourth.

CIARKOWSKI STARTED the inning with a leadoff walk and came ho

me on a RBI double by Pieczynski. The ball carried into the left center gap and kept going. Elyse Perrault sacrificed Pieczynski to third and Megan Haske brought her home on a sacrifice fly and a 2-0 advantage. Hillman put one on the board with a walk and a couple of errors, and had two runners on board, before Roxann Hincka made a nice stop at first and touched the bag for the final out. The Vikings got the run back in the bottom of the sixth when Pieczynski ripped a solo homer to straight away left field. That?s all the runs Posen needed to breath a little easier, and send the North Star League champs packing.

Posen loses five seniors from the 2007 team, four of which were starters. They include Mary Calhoun, Megan Pieczynski, Jenny Ciarkowski, Roxann Hincka, and Brittany Styma. Budnick has experienced starters returning next year, and with some talented freshmen coming in, Posen still will be a force to reckoned with.