Unionville-Sebewaing Area holds off Mendon, 5-4, for 4th straight Division 4 softball title
EAST LANSING — When Rylie Betson squeezed the ball in her glove’s webbing for the final out, she let out the biggest exhale in the history of Michigan high school softball.
The Unionville-Sebewaing Area junior had to pitch her way out of a seventh-inning bases-loaded jam while protecting a one-run lead, and it didn’t help that Betson had hit two Mendon batters to create the logjam on the basepaths. But Betson bore down and induced a feeble pop-up back to the circle for the third out, helping USA hold on for a 5-4 win and the Division 4 championship, its fourth consecutive state title dating back to the pre-COVID season of 2019.
“That was crazy,” Betson said. “It’s not a situation I wanted to face, but I knew I had to come through. I had to pull together for my team. They were saying, ‘Hey, you got this, you just need to calm down, and you can do this.’”
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Betson could indeed get through it, capping a complete-game five-hitter in which she struck out six and had no wild pitches.
“I definitely love the close games, but not in that situation, obviously,” she said. “It’s just amazing, especially in a game that made history. I still haven’t calmed down.”
“Rylie, I always say she’s a warrior, but I think she started to think about the pressure, because she hasn’t hit a batter all year long,” first-year coach Marc Reinhardt said. “Our presence in this game (in prior seasons) had something to do with that. I gave her a big ol’ hug and said, ‘Man, you’re a warrior. I know it’s not the way you wanted to finish that game, but you finished that game, and you are a state champ.' ”
The tense last inning wasn’t the only drama the Patriots (33-10) faced. Mendon (35-6) stunned USA by taking a 3-1 lead in the top of the third, powered by Lauren Schabes’ triple that drove home Jadyn Samson and Brielle Bailey. Schabes then came home on a sacrifice fly by Kaidee Gonser.
The deficit wasn’t didnt last long, though, as USA scored four times in its next time up. The game-changer was a three-run homer over the leftfield wall off the bat of Jenna Gremel. Olivia Jubar and pinch-runner Matalie DeGroat also crossed the plate on the blast.
“When I saw there were two people on base, I knew I had to get them in, and I was looking for a hit to the outfield or something, but I was not expecting a home run,” Gremel said. “I’ve been dreaming of this since freshman year. I remember walking on this field and being like, ‘I wish I could hit it over this fence,’ ever since that day, and it was really awesome.”
USA went up 5-3 later in the inning, after Ella Neumann singled, went to second on Erin Jubar’s single, went to third on Lauren Green’s sacrifice bunt and came home on a wild pitch.
“It was surprising. I wasn’t expecting us to score right away,” Gremel said. “I felt that we laid off them a bit and definitely underestimated them, but we went out there and said we’re going to get back up, because that’s the way we always do it. Scoring those next three runs was special.”
By winning its fourth straight championship (and ninth overall), Unionville-Sebewaing Area ties the Harper Woods Regina squads of 2004-07 for the state's second-longest softball title streak. Only Kalamazoo Christian, which won Class C in 1996-97 and Division 3 in 1998-2000, has a longer string, and USA could tie that next year.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan high school softball: Unionville-Sebewaing Area tops Mendon
