Days like the one they experienced on April 9 make Riley Frizell and Ava Scott wonder why they came back from Tennessee.
On a day when snow flurries tumbled down at Willoughby Eagles Field, a day when fans built a campfire to keep warm and made s’mores to munch on during the game, Frizell and Scott provided enough heroics to propel South to a 7-0 win over visiting Chardon in the Rebels first game in Ohio since returning from their spring break trip.
>> Photo gallery from Chardon vs. South
Frizell pitched a two-hitter, striking out 14, and Scott blasted a two-run home run in a five-run third inning, leading South to its first win in Ohio after a 4-3 slate in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., at the Ripken Tournament.
“Better than last year, surprisingly,” said Frizell of last year’s sleet-filled Western Reserve Conference opener at Brush. “When the wind stayed down, it wasn’t too bad today. When the wind picked up, it was pretty cold.”
Fans who arrived early scurried around the park to pick up sticks and branches for a nearby fire pit. Once the fire was started, multiple fans on the South side gathered around it. Before taking the field, a number of Rebels warmed their fingers over the flames one last time.
“Lovely. Nothing like playing your first game in Ohio in the snow,” deadpanned South coach Erin Dodson.
South (5-3, 1-0 WRC) never wavered. With Frizell dominating on the mound, the Rebels didn’t need a lot of offense. But they got it anyway.
South sent 10 batters to the plate in the bottom of the third inning, with Kenna Matriano breaking the scoring deadlock with an infield ingle to plate Hanna Blasinsky. Frizell then followed with a double down the right-field line.
Scott then unloaded on a Kayla Preziuso offering for a two-run home run and a 4-0 lead.
“Yeah it was right on the sweet spot,” said Scott, knowing the ball was gone when she hit it. “It felt nice.”
Preziusio also gave up an RBI single to Raegan Williams before escaping the jam.
The damage could have been worse than 5-0. Two of South’s three outs in the third were made at home plate.
“The one inning we looked really good,” Dodson said. “But we need to be way more consistent. If we can hit a pitcher in one inning, we should be able to hit in every inning. It’s a big learning process.”
Preziusio faced two batters over the minimum in the other four innings — the first, second, fourth and fifth — but had the one rough inning.
“I thought Kayla had a great outing,” first-year Chardon coach Erwin Hines said. “She pitched a great game. She just hung one, and that’s the one that went over the fence.”
The only other run came in the seventh on Mya Matriano’s sacrifice fly to center that plated Allison Cesar.
Hines tipped his cap to Frizell’s dominating pitching performance. Aside from Kayla Noerr’s one-out single to right with one out in the fifth, and Jackie Adkins’ single to center with one out in the seventh, the only runner to reach base against Frizell did so on an in field error.
“I had a hand-warmer in my back pocket, so that helped,” Frizell said. “At the end, there was no feeling (in her fingers). I was just praying the ball moved where it had to go.”
Said Hines, “We couldn’t hit (Frizell). We were over-aggressive. She kept throwing change-ups, and baited us into (swinging).”
Chardon fell to 1-1, with its other game being a win over Beaumont. The Hilltoppers and Rebels are slated to play again on April 10.
“We didn’t have a chance to go down south (for a spring trip), so we’re cold,” Hines said. “Kind of like the Indians, we’re cold. We haven’t seen a lot of live pitching.”
Frizell said the Rebels have big goals this year after losing in the first round of the Division I tournament last year.
“The whole getting-knocked-out-early was a punch in the face,” she said. “We want to prove last year was a giant fluke and it’s not going to happen again this year.”
Don’t miss
>> Video interview with South coach Erin Dodson