Streak snapped

The Indians nearly gave the game away.
They got a gift in extras.
Fort Recovery High School’s softball team snapped a six-game losing streak to start the season Tuesday, defeating the host Jay County Patriots 5-4 in eight innings.
“We played pretty well tonight,” said first-year FRHS coach Jeff Vaughn, whose team lost 59 games in the last three seasons. “I’m really proud of their effort.”
Senior Tori Vaughn, the coach’s daughter who has been part of the Indians’ struggling teams in the past, was happy to get the victory against the Tribe’s state-line rival.
“Awesome,” she said with a big smile on her face. “After not a ton of success the last few seasons it is good to get one, especially early. Hopefully we can keep it rolling and use it to our advantage.”
After losing a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the seventh inning. Fort Recovery (1-6) pushed across a run in the top of the eighth.
Freshman Taylor Thien ripped a one-out double down the left field line off JCHS starter McKayla Norris.
Taylor Griesz went down on strikes for out No. 2, and then Chelsea Timmerman hit a pop fly to the right side of the Patriot infield. The ball bounced off the glove of JCHS second baseman Emily Corn, allowing Thien to score from second for a 5-4 advantage.
“It was huge that Taylor got that double there,” Vaughn said of Thien, who was 2-for-4. “She has hit the ball solid all year.”
The Patriots’ third error of the game was the backbreaker.
“Had some opportunities to make some stops defensively that we should have made and didn’t,” said JCHS coach Amy Hawbaker, whose team was playing for the first time this season after having six games rescheduled because of weather. “I think a lot of it had to do with first-game jitters (and) nervousness.”
Jay County (0-1) threatened in the bottom half of the eighth with two runners in scoring position, but FRHS starter Chelsea Timmerman (1-4) got slugger Gabby Hart to pop out to Audra Metzger in center field.
“She is a bulldog,” Jeff Vaughn said of Timmerman. The senior tossed all eight innings, giving up 10 hits, four runs — three earned —while striking out five. She didn’t allow a walk until the eighth inning when Chloe Trissel and Kady Finnerty drew back-to-back two-out walks.
“I thought she pitched a heck of a ball game, and to get a win was nice to see because she’s put a lot of time in,” Vaughn said.
Despite allowing double-digit hits for the third time this season, Timmerman was able to limit the damage by leaving Patriot runners on base. Jay County, which jumped ahead 2-0 after the first inning, stranded a dozen runners.
Trailing 4-3 in the fifth, Jay County had bases loaded with one out until Timmerman recorded a strikeout and a fly out to get out of the jam.
The Patriots, who were starting two freshmen and four sophomores, had runners on the corners with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, and scored a run on an outfield error by the Indians to tie the game. The mishap put the potential game-winning run on third base, but Timmerman again limited further damage by inducing a groundout to Devin Post at shortstop.
Norris (0-1) suffered the loss for the Patriots. She gave up five runs — two earned — on 12 hits, struck out four and walked one while also going the distance. At times she had difficulty throwing strikes, but when she was able to find the strike zone the Indians put the ball in play.
“I thought she did pretty good,” said Hawbaker, whose team hits the road to play at Huntington North at 5 p.m. tonight. “The umpire was keeping her pretty tight on the plate. She was struggling a little bit to try to find his strike zone.”
Junior Logan Ranly paced the Indians’ offensively, recording three hits, and drove in the game-tying run during the third inning. Kasey Vogel and Vaughn also had multi-hit games.
Corn, a sophomore, led the Patriots with three hits, including a double to deep left field during the first inning. She ripped the first pitch she saw from Timmerman, and it fell just short of the fence in left field.
“I really thought that was going to be a dinger,” Hawbaker said. Trissel and Finnerty also had multi-hit games, and Gwen Butcher’s first career hit was a double in the second inning.
But Tuesday belonged to the Indians, who are hoping to springboard this victory into many more in the win column.
“I think we just take it and roll with it,” Tori Vaughn said. “We look at the good things we did, but also look at the things we did wrong because there were plenty of mistakes we made. We just grow from that.”