Kayden Burchett provided a bright spot for Cardington in their Wednesday playoff loss at East Knox, leading off the game with a double and then scoring on a sacrifice fly.
Rob Hamilton | Morrow County Sentinel
For the first time in many seasons, the Cardington softball team won’t be making a deep playoff run.
With a young team after graduating the bulk of its line-up from 2022’s Final Four squad, coach Tod Brininger’s group was outscored by host East Knox by an 11-1 margin on Wednesday.
After splitting their two regular season games with the Bulldogs, Cardington got off to a decent start, scoring in the top of the first. However, they would struggle to generate offense afterwards and miscues plagued them throughout the five-inning game.
“They were familiar with us, we were familiar with them,” said Brininger of his team’s KMAC rival. “They did a much better job approaching at bats than we did. We swung at a lot of balls that were not strikes. They did not swing at a single one I don’t think that wasn’t a strike. Their senior class, they have a big one. We had it last year. They’re experienced and they know how to play softball really well. We’re young, but I think we grew throughout the year, which is the important thing.”
Cardington got off to a fast start with Kayden Burchett opening the game with a double. She would take third base on a throwing error by the Bulldogs and Morgan Powell would follow by drawing a walk to put runners on the corners with no one out.
However, the team would only get one run out of that situation when Burchett scored on a sacrifice fly by Genevieve Longsdorf. Brininger noted that his team needed to take better advantage of those early baserunners.
“We missed a couple signs,” he said. “We didn’t do what we were supposed to do to try to get that runner into scoring position. That’s tough. Any time you get on top right there early, you want to score two or three at least, if not more, because you can really break the game open. They did a nice job of settling down.”
While Pirate pitchers Longsdorf and Ari Simpson combined to only give up five hits, they were hurt by six walks issued and eight team errors.
The first of those errors played a role in the Bulldogs taking a lead in the bottom of the first. Hannah McCoy led off the inning with a single and would score on a one-out sacrifice fly by Natalie Smith. Shanda Melick then hit a two-out pop-up that was dropped to keep the inning alive. After Maddy Cotsamire drew a walk, Kayla Finch followed with a single that made the game 2-1 in favor of East Knox before Longsdorf could record a strikeout to get out of the inning.
Cotsamire would then dominate on the mound over the next four innings. She retired Cardington in order in the second, third and fourth frames and only surrendered a single to Myleigh Bishop in the fifth.
Longsdorf was able to pitch around three walks during the second and third innings, but ran into trouble in the fourth. With runners on first and second and no one out, she induced a ground ball from Hannah McCoy, but the ball was bobbled, leading to a run being scored. A single by Baylee Comer would make it a 4-1 game.
Four more runs would score before the inning had ended, with East Knox taking advantage of two dropped fly balls in batting around the order. The Bulldogs had a total of 11 at bats in the inning, as they broke open what had been a close game.
“We’ve had a lot of innings like that this year,” said Brininger. “I told these guys if we want to be better next year, work starts tomorrow. We’ve had way too many innings like that. Our errors this year were kind of off the charts a little bit. It comes with a young team learning things, but we’ve got to get better.”
The Bulldogs would finish the game with a three-run fifth inning to end Cardington’s season. For Brininger and the Cardington program, this marks their quickest playoff exit in years.
“The last time we didn’t make it out of sectionals was my first year coaching, so 2009 or whatever it was,” he said. “They just have to play softball. They have to learn the game. They’re a talented group. We had no seniors this year, so that always hurts when you don’t have that senior leadership. We’ve got a couple juniors who are going to be seniors next year that hopefully learned how to lead this year. They’ve just got to get out and play. They’ve got to experience what softball is and just work with it.”
Rob Hamilton can be reached at 419-946-3010, ext. 1807. Connect with him on Twitter at @SportsMCS
