NEW RIEGEL — It was an uphill battle from the first pitch until the final out, but Crestview gave itself a chance.
The fourth-seeded Cougars scored a pair of runs in the seventh and brought the go-ahead run to the plate with two out but came up short in a 4-2 loss to No. 1 seed Huron in the Division III district semifinals Wednesday at New Rigel High School.
Huron will play Edison for the district title at noon Saturday in New Riegel. Edison beat Colonel Crawford 3-0 in Wednesday’s second game.
The Cougars (22-5) had no answers for Huron starter Eliza Maloney for most of the afternoon. She retired the first 14 batters she faced before issuing a two-out walk to Lindsey Them in the fifth.
“She’s very good,” Huron coach Jude Schmidt said of Maloney. “She had a game plan. They are a great hitting team and she accomplished what we wanted to accomplish.”
Maloney took a no-hitter into the seventh before Kylie Ringler broke it up with a clean single to center to start the inning. Mary Leeper followed with a single to left before Them drove him Crestview’s first run of the day with on a groundout to second. Kristin Crider them drew a two-out walk and Maddie Aumend plated Leeper with a run-scoring single to right.
“I’m proud of them, especially at the end the way they fought,” Crestview coach Aaron Goon said. “They made it interesting for us. We had the tying run on base.”
The Tigers (19-9) got to Crestview ace Kylie Ringler for a pair of runs in the home half of the first. Rae Roldan led off with an infield single and Maloney walked before Meadow Bess moved both runners up with a sacrifice bunt. Carly Chambers followed with a two-run single to left.
Huron added a run in the second on Roldan’s RBI single and an unearned run in the third on a Bess single and a Crestview throwing error.
A Kent State recruit, Ringler gave up six hits and struck out nine in her final game for the Cougars.
“She is one great pitcher, the best we’ve seen, I’ll tell you that,” Schmidt said. “She’s very, very good. The objective was just to put the ball in play.”
Ringler didn’t allow a runner past second base after the third inning. She retired the final five batters she faced.
“Kylie battled hard,” Goon said. “They got a couple of hits off of her and a couple of earned runs, but a lot of that was we didn’t make the plays when we needed to. We had a couple of errors that cost us.”
