Sports
Western Michigan ends Ohio’s Season
By: Kellen Becoats
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Leanna Bachman sat in the circle, watching as the Western Michigan runners load the bases with two outs in the fifth inning of Wednesday’s game.
Already facing a 6-2 deficit, she watched Marlee Wilson step into the batter’s box and send her pitch past the Firestone Stadium fence for a grand slam.
The grand slam ended the game early, as the Broncos took a 10-2 win in the fifth inning to end Ohio’s season.
A pair of high scoring innings sunk any chance of Ohio prolonging its postseason.
The Broncos got off to a hot start, recording four runs in the first inning on a RBI triple, a RBI single and a two-run homer.
Ohio (0-2) was able to respond in the second, but a single run off of sophomore Madison Claytor’s groundout Only dropped the deficit to three.
For much of the rest of the game it appeared that the Bobcats were trying to limit the damage defensively while trying to claw their way back on the offensive end.
While they did that, Western Michigan seemed content to sit on its lead, even adding to it with two runs in the fourth inning.
Each time — outside of the grand slam — that the Broncos put multiple runs on the board, Ohio put a singular run on the board and looked on the edge of a comeback.
But then Western Michigan cut the Bobcats off at the next at bat to keep them facing a fairly hefty deficit.
It was the last game for six Bobcats as Kaylin Clarke, Adrienne Gebele, Raven King, Lauren McClary, Dakota Pyles and Timmie Rappe are all graduating this year.
With a large, strong recruit class coming in and junior Savannah Jo Dorsey coming back from injury next season looks to be a good year for Ohio.
Until then, the Bobcats can take solace in the fact that they played this season where freshman — especially Mikayla Cooper — stepped into bigger roles, many players became multi-versatile and they played with a bare-bones roster. Based on that, if the Ohio players can become more consistent on both ends of the ball, they can live up to the No. 1 ranking that the received this past preseason.