money Jellison helps power Watkins Memorial past Marysville in state-ranked softball clash
PATASKALA — Every game is big in some respect for the state’s top-ranked softball team, but Watkins Memorial players admitted that Tuesday’s home contest against No. 8 Marysville came with extra electricity in the air.
“It’s so fun and so intense,” Warriors first baseman McKayla Jellison said. “This kind of game is the best, even at the risk of us losing. It’s better in the long run. We’ll find out more about ourselves.”
Jellison did her part, blasting two home runs for the second consecutive day, and Taylor Gerhardt’s three-run homer in the sixth inning provided insurance as Watkins Memorial improved to 18-0 with an 8-4 win.
Catcher and Ohio University commit Jordyn Wycuff also homered, complementing a largely solid pitching performance from Kendal Tellings. Tellings, a sophomore who is carrying the pitching load while Pittsburgh commit Carsyn Cassady recovers from an MCL injury, struck out two, walked three and induced 13 fly ball outs.
Marysville (15-3) scored all of its runs in the fourth, two on a double by pitcher Tareyn Born and the others on a Brooke Williams single to take a 4-3 lead, but left the bases loaded twice.
Jellison homered in the bottom of the inning, her sixth of the season, to tie it after a two-run shot to straightaway center in the second. All of the Tiffin signee’s homers this season have come in the past week.
“My whole season has pretty much turned around recently,” Jellison said. “I think I am getting more confident as the season is going. I am seeing the ball and believing in myself.”
Watkins Memorial’s Ava McKee reached on an error to lead off the sixth and scored the go-ahead run on another Monarchs miscue before Gerhardt’s blast to left.
“I was seeing outside pitches early but then my third at-bat, she came in on me and that’s when I popped out (to shortstop in the fifth),” said Gerhardt, a center fielder and Adrian commit. “The fourth at-bat, I was determined to hit that pitch if I got it again. I had a feeling she’d go inside and I wasn’t going to let her beat me again.”
Gerhardt also robbed Born of a leadoff homer in the seventh, making the catch about 6 inches over the wall in center.
Watkins Memorial scored at least eight runs for the 15th time and is averaging 11.5 runs per game.
“We can definitely hit and we made some phenomenal defensive plays,” Warriors coach Mike Jellison said. “We came up big and never got down. We needed to see that, facing some adversity late in the game. We’re going to see that as we get into the tournament. We’ve been here before and we have a lot of experience. These girls don’t get rattled.”
Marysville’s other losses have been to seventh-ranked Teays Valley (6-1 on April 15) and Mount Vernon (13-6 on Saturday).
“When you get into these big games, you have to be flawless,” Monarchs coach Jennifer Segner-Maxwell said. “It has to be flawless defense and flawless pitching, and we weren’t flawless defensively.”
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Top-ranked Watkins Memorial softball powers past Marysville
