FR falls in five to Tigers

WAYNESFIELD, Ohio — The Indians had a tough time recording outs.
They had trouble finding open spots in the Tigers’ defense, too.
Fort Recovery High School’s softball team had its tournament season come to an end Monday with a 14-2 loss in five innings to the Waynesfield-Goshen Tigers in the Division IV Wapakoneta District sectional semifinal.
“Started out right from the get-go,” said FRHS coach Jeff Vaughn, whose 11th-seeded Indians fell to 3-18 and close out their season at 5 p.m. tonight at Marion Local. “We just didn’t come prepared to play it seemed to me, and it just kind of snowballed as we went.”
After sitting the Indians (3-18) down in order in the top of the first inning, fifth-seeded Waynesfield-Goshen (12-7) got a leadoff double from Chelsea Spencer, who then stole third base. She scored on an error, and Aubrey Biederman followed with an RBI single. She later scored on a fielder’s choice to make it 3-0 Tigers after one inning.
During the second, Waynesfield-Goshen touched up Fort Recovery pitcher Chelsea Timmerman for three runs on three singles, forcing Vaughn into making a pitching change.
Devin Post came in to relieve Timmerman, and she allowed two more runs — one of which was charged to Timmerman — before eventually getting out of the inning with her only strikeout. The Tigers sent 10 batters to the plate, pushing the advantage to 9-0 after two frames.
“Chelsea couldn’t find any rhythm and when she finally started to they started hitting the ball,” Vaughn said. “We tried to make a change. Devin did OK, and then ran into some trouble with some walks.
Post, she lasted 1 1/3 innings, gave up four more runs on one hit and five walks while only recording one out in the third inning. Timmerman came back to pitch and got the Indians out of the frame. The senior allowed eight runs — seven earned — on 10 hits. She walked three and struck out two in three innings of work.
The Tigers put the ball in play often — they had 12 total hits, including three singles from Beiderman and two each from Halie Gilroy, Emily Walters and Cydney Roberts. Fort Recovery’s defense committed three errors on the day but had the tendency to throw the ball around the infield allowing the Tigers to take extra bases. Waynesfield-Goshen tallied six RBIs on its 14 runs.
“Unfortunately it was a bad day offensively and defensively,” Vaughn said.
Waynesfield-Goshen pitcher Paige Crawford had a solid outing, fooling the Indians with a solid diet of rise balls and changeups.
Fort Recovery got a runner to second in the second inning but she didn’t advance any further. An inning later, the Indians had runners at the corners with one out but they were left stranded.
Crawford finished with eight strikeouts and four walks, and lost her no-hit bid with two outs in the fifth inning. It was at that time the Indians hit a ball out of the infield for the first time.
Chloe Metzger drew a one-out walk in the fifth inning, and Timmerman walked with two outs two batters later. Then Tori Vaughn, playing in her last tournament game for Fort Recovery, ripped the first pitch of her at bat to the gap in left center field for a two-run double, driving in Metzger and Timmerman.
“(Crawford) had a nice changeup and we had a hard time hitting her all day,” Jeff Vaughn said. “Tori finally cracked the hit column there in the (fifth), but it was a tough day from the get-go.”