High school softball: Unearned runs put quick end to Avon Lake's postseason

AVON LAKE — Three unearned runs cost Avon Lake's softball team a chance to advance to the second round in the Division III tournament Thursday. The No. 30-seeded Shoregals (9-14) outhit Alliance but lost 3-1 to put an end to their tournament hopes. The No. 32-seeded Aviators (12-14) advance to play No. 2 Gilmour Academy on Tuesday. "I think I told you when we started," Avon Lake coach Brandon Webster said. "I felt like it would be an even game. We were playing ourselves. Whoever made the least amount of mistakes and hit the ball would win." Avon Lake had five hits to just three by the Aviators. "I thought we hit the ball just as good as they did and we pitched just as good as they did," Webster said. "The difference was we had some costly errors. I'm pretty sure that was zero earned runs so we really should have won the game 1-0." Webster was right. The Shoregals made four throwing errors on routine ground balls that led to all of Alliance's scoring. Avon Lake's only run came when senior Erin Dean beat out an infield hit, stole second and came home on sophomore Audrey Kunzelman's single to the gap in left-center in the fourth inning. The run tied the game at 1. Meanwhile, the Aviators took full advantage of the infield throws in the dirt on ground balls. Aubrey Lunsford singled to right with one out in the top of the first, moved to second and third on wild pitches and scored with two outs on a wild throw on a grounder to short. In the fifth, Peyton Graham reached on a throwing error on a ground ball, moved up to second on a sacrifice bunt from Alaina Minear and stole third on a delayed steal that had everyone fooled. Kendyll Brown's fly to deep center brought her home easily. In the sixth, Alliance's Lilliana White doubled just inside the left-field foul line and advanced to third and finally home on back-to-back throwing errors on infield grounders. "Our baserunning is probably one of the best things we have," Alliance coach Emily Grindley said. "We always tell the girls to get on and you know what to do after that. It's great because we really don't have to talk a lot to them. They're smart enough like Peyton (Graham) on that delayed steal. That's all her. It makes my job a lot easier." Defensively, unlike the Shoregals, Alliance made all the plays — the easy ones and the difficult. Center fielder Kendyl Brown stole a hit from Avon Lake leadoff hitter Briana Webster to start the first inning and left fielder Kiersten White made a couple nice plays as well. "We were exactly where we needed to be," Grindley said. "It was an error-free night. That's big for us. We struggle every once in a while. We usually have one defensive inning where we make a couple of errors but (Thursday) we didn't. We played very hard." The Shoregals had two hits from freshman Mary Sue Sittema in the first and third innings and one by freshman Addison Dunleavy on a chopper in front of the plate that she beat out for a hit in the sixth, but were unable to cash in on either. Avon Lake will play Cuyahoga Heights (9-7) in a non-conference game tonight that was originally scheduled to give both teams some tournament preparation. It'll be Brandon Webster's final game as head coach as he and his family will be moving to Florida after the season. Contact Tim Gebhardt at (440) 329-7135 or at timothygeb@msn.com.