Rally on two: Whippets score nine with two outs, beat Ontario to stay atop MOAC standings

SHELBY — The Shelby Whippets wore their rally caps proudly.

During a 13-6 win over Ontario on Wednesday night which kept the Whippets locked in a tie atop the Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference standings with Clear Fork, the Whippets sported their lucky caps and scored nine runs with two outs over the final two innings, including six in the sixth inning to pull off the season sweep against their Richland County rival.

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"We have done that a lot this year," Shelby coach Samantha Martin said. "We even have a running joke that when we have two outs it is when we are at our best. They shorten up, put the ball in play and make things happen instead of swinging for the fences. There is just something magic about it and it is weird when the coach starts feeling better when there are two outs."

Trailing 6-4 heading into the home half of the fifth, the Whippets scored three runs with two outs when Kendal Parsons, Mallary Gundrum and Braylee Sturts hit three consecutive doubles. In the sixth, the Whippets recorded two quick outs before a single and an error kept the inning alive. Karlie Walp and Parsons had back-to-back RBI singles before Gundrum unloaded a screaming two-run home run to cap off an impressive offensive night for the Whippets.

"My goal is always just to get ahead in the count, get a pitch to put in play and move the runners," Gundrum said. "But I am looking for my meatball pitch and I got one today."

Gundrum finished with two hits and five RBIs while Parsons had three hits and four RBIs. Walp collected three hits while Natalie Kennard and Sturts had two apiece and Kennedy Studer, Lexi Booker and Maggie Bogner had two apiece. Walp, Sturts and Studer each had one RBI.

Gundrum was proud of the way her team approached two out at-bats.

"It seems like all of our runs lately have come with two outs," Gundrum said. "It comes from us knowing how talented we are as a team and no matter if it is the bottom of the seventh or the first at-bat, we have confidence in each other that even if there are two outs, we can get the job done."

The Whippets scored 13 runs but just four were earned as an error in the sixth inning could have ended the threat before Shelby put up six on the board.

"I felt like we got a little tight," Ontario coach Jamee Burke said. "That has kind of been the story of our year. One happens and we try to nip it in the bud so two doesn't happen, but unfortunately, things just snowballed."

Offensively, the Warriors scored six runs over the first four innings highlighted by a first-inning two-run homer from Eden Howard, who finished with two hits and three RBIs. Brinlee Kreger, Brylie Ireland and Maddie Mullins had two hits apiece and Morgan Pearson and Trista Jewell had one each. Kreger had two RBIs and Jewell had one.

The Warriors (8-12, 3-8) are out of the league race after winning the championship in back-to-back seasons, so the focus shifts to the postseason which begins next week when they travel to Clyde on May 10 for a sectional championship showdown.

"We have four games left that are very winnable, so we want to make sure we go out and play like we did the first six innings from tonight," Burke said. "We were very competitive. We have to have quality at-bats in these next four games. Our last inning, we saw three pitches and made three outs and only one was a solid piece of hitting. We have to stop forcing ourselves, split the plate in half and pick a good pitch for us and it will make us more competitive."

A major reason the Whippets kept Ontario to just one run over the final five innings was the pitching by Kelsey Snyder, who allowed just one run on five hits in 5⅔ innings of relief work.

"Lexi (Booker) is our ace so we started with her and I could tell early that Ontario had her timed up from yesterday because even when we were getting outs, they were on it," Martin said. "Kelsey does a really good job for us keeping people off pace with different speeds. She did a great job with her changeup. She was on fire so we kept her in."

Shelby (16-6, 11-1) now heads into the final week of the regular season needing two wins over Pleasant on Wednesday and Thursday to claim their first league championship since 2011, something Gundrum and the rest of the team are embracing.

"We only have a couple of weeks left of the season and our magic number is two if we want to win a league championship, so we are having fun with it," Gundrum said. "It has been a goal of mine to bring a conference championship to this softball program since I was a freshman so it would mean a lot. Our coach was a stud in her college and high school career and she has brought a lot of leadership. She gives us a ton of confidence just by believing in us. She put a lot of us on varsity as freshmen and that shows just how much she believes in us."

She absolutely does.

"If you go back to the Clear Fork game, you could tell the vibe was really tense and nervous and we didn't say a whole lot," Martin said. "I told them they had every tool they needed to win a league championship, but they just had to go out and have fun. Sure, there is pressure, but we play tough teams in our nonconference schedule and have been through every situation so they should have confidence heading into these league games with so much on the line."

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This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Shelby Whippets beat Ontario Warriors in Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference softball