Ashlyn Severns' walk-off hit sends Tallmadge High School softball to OHSAA title game
Tallmadge has been to the state final four in softball 16 times, but hasn't won it all since 1998.
That 25-year drought might be seven innings away from ending.
A walk-off single by Ashlyn Severns in the bottom of the seventh inning gave the Blue Devils a 6-5 win over Greenville (28-5) Thursday at Firestone Stadium.
Tallmadge (24-8) advanced to the state title game at 12:30 p.m. Saturday against Canfield, a 2-1 walk-off winner over Steubenville in Thursday's first semifinal.
Severns' walk-off capped a Blue Devils rally from a 5-0 deficit midway through the third inning. Coach Brittany Lightel called the game a microcosm of Tallmadge's season.
"It's worth it," she said. "We knew they were going to do it. They've never been a team to get down. That team scored five runs pretty early in the game and they stayed high energy. We know that we can produce runs, so it was just chipping away at it a little bit at a time."
"We just knew that we could come back," said designated player Katie Huth. "We're a good team. We knew we had the bats to back each other up. Obviously, we were a little worried. I think we were all nervous, but once we started getting hits, we couldn't stop."
Greenville pitcher Zoey Burns and the Blue Devils' gloves put Tallmadge behind early.
Burns opened the scoring with a sacrifice fly in the top of the first and then smacked a two-run homer in the third. The Green Wave added two more runs in the third, helped by three Tallmadge errors.
Lightel was flummoxed by her team's five-error performance.
"I was looking at my coaching staff like, 'What the heck?'" Lightel said. "I think the nerves probably got the best of them a little bit. We kept telling them, 'Ball first. Ball first!' Luckily, our offense came and produced and we were able to hold it together."
High school softball: Tallmadge ready for 'surreal experience playing at Firestone Stadium' in state tournament
Tallmadge pitcher Riley Jackson kept the Devils in it. She gave up five runs (three earned) on just four hits and three walks with six strikeouts in a complete-game win.
Burns held Tallmadge scoreless through one cycle through the lineup, but the Blue Devils finished with 10 hits.
An RBI single by Marley Queen and a sacrifice fly by Huth cut it 5-2 at the end of three innings, and sacrifices by Queen and Jocelyn Caffelle in the fifth made it 5-4.
In the sixth, Sydney Becks came through with a two-out RBI single to tie the score 5-5.
Tallmadge then finished the job after Greenville's 1-2-3 seventh inning.
Leila Staszak walked, Caffelle was hit by a pitch and Queen laid down a sacrifice bunt to put runners at second and third with one out. Staszak led Tallmadge with three singles and three runs scored.
Rather than face Huth, Greenville intentionally walked her.
"I knew I could do the job," Huth said. "When I got up there and they said they were going to walk me, I was like, 'Really?' I wanted to hit in that moment."
"I was freaking out at first. I definitely was shaking. I was kind of numb," Severns said. "It happens to me a lot. They walk the person in front of me and it's my turn to shine. I had been in a slump for a while, so it was my time to get out of a slump."
The slump ended when Severns hit a ball just over Burns' glove and into center field to score Staszak with the game-winner.
"It was just a blur," Severns said. "I was just trying to put the bat on the ball and try to make something happen."
High school softball:: Five things to know about Tallmadge softball heading into OHSAA state tournament
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Tallmadge High School reaches OHSAA softball state final
