Norwayne comes up clutch to beat Hillsdale in first place WCAL clash

JEROMESVILLE — With two swings of the bat, Riley Gwinn not only changed her Norwayne High School softball team’s fortunes against Hillsdale, but also drove in the go-ahead run as the Bobcats topped the Falcons 4-2 in nine innings on Thursday.

The Norwayne victory pur them atop the Wayne County Athletic League’s standings alone at 10-1 (13-3 overall). Hillsdale slipped to 9-2 in the WCAL and 12-5 overall with one more meeting with Norwayne down the road.

With Hillsdale holding a 2-0 lead heading into the seventh inning, Gwinn tied the game at 2-2 when she stroked a two-out 2-RBI single to left off Falcon ace Taylor Morgan.

In the top of the ninth, Gwinn drove in the go-ahead run with an RBI-single to center before Julia Larrison later came up with an RBI-single to give Norwayne a 4-2 lead.

“Well, I know I was looking at a good pitch to swing at and I know the nerves were on me but I knew I had to do it for my team,” Gwinn said about coming up with a pair of clutch hits. “My team was for me the entire game, they were just giving 100%, And I knew if I didn’t, I’d be letting them down.”

Norwayne coach Bree Gill talked about the comeback win and the job done by Gwinn.

“Honestly, we knew coming into it, it was going to be a dogfight. We knew Taylor’s a great pitcher, and our mindset was hands on top of the ball, and I told them we might go through the lineup three or four times without a hit, and we just have to stick with it,” Gill said. “That’s exactly what they did. We had some timely hitting and girls stepped up, a lot of freshmen stepped up today, and our defense was great.

“Riley came up big in our win against Northwestern, she hit a home run in that game to give us the lead, and tonight I was fully confident with her at the plate in those situations,” Gill added. “She is a baller, she has a baller mindset. She’s going to get it done. I’m excited she’s going to be around for a while.”

Hillsdale scored its runs in the second and third innings to go ahead and held that lead heading into the seventh. Ally Morgan coaxed a bases-loaded walk off of Norwayne pitcher Alexis Cottrell, to score Belle Dalton, who had walked but the Falcons left the bases loaded in the second.

In the third, Rodalynn Mast singles for Hillsdale and eventually scored on Taylor Morgan’s groundout to second. But the Falcons again stranded a pair in the inning and had their chances to take a better lead.

“Cottrell pitched really well to us, kept us off-balanced, and guessing. And we weren’t hitting our pitches,” Hillsdale coach Hannah Moore noted. “She pitched well and came up clutch in a couple of situations so kudos to her.”

Cottrell went the distance for Norwayne, yielding two earned runs on seven hits with 10 strikeouts and six walks.

“Alexa’s knee has been bothering her, so she hasn’t really thrown much this week and I think it took her those first couple of innings and how to get back into it,” Gill said. “I think she got better as the game went on, and I was proud of her for staying on it and keeping us in the game.”

Taylor Morgan also threw extremely well in the circle for Hillsdale, giving up four earned runs on 12 hits with 14 strikeouts and four walks.

“Taylor pitched well, she had a couple of missed pitches,” said Moore. “They’re a good hitting team, they put the bat on the ball, didn’t come up scared or anything, they wanted to hit her. We’ve just got to do a better job the next time.”

Mollie Goon doubled for Hillsdale with singles being hit by Jacey Sermulis, Mast, Dalton, Taylor Morgan, Keira Filius and Baylea Baldner-Wise.

For Norwayne, Gwinn led the way with a trio singles, Larrison and Anna Metsker each had a pair of singles, with Abby Workman, Zoe Gadosik, Emrie Schmidt, CJ Moore and Avery Lonsbury each adding singles.

Both teams played flawlessly in the field.

“Our defense kept us in it, we had a couple of pitches we’d like to take back and a couple of their plays we would like to redo,” Moore said. “But that’s what happens in these kinds of games.”

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Softball: Norwayne beats Hillsdale in big WCAL clash