Tallmadge softball flushes tricky third, tops Aurora in critical clash

AURORA — The toy toilet in the Blue Devils dugout serves as a clear reminder.

It's there to urge Tallmadge softball players to flush whatever bad moments might happen in a game.

Flush it and move on.

In Monday's clash of 2022 Suburban American co-champs, the Blue Devils did exactly that after the Greenmen strung together three straight two-out hits in the bottom of the third to take a two-run lead.

Back came Tallmadge with two runs in the fifth and two in the seventh for a 5-3 victory over host Aurora Monday.

"Even when we're not doing well, we don't get down," Blue Devils pitcher Riley Jackson said. "We always stay up in the dugout, and we have a [toy] toilet in there, like a thing where we flush, like if we have anything negative, we just flush it down the toilet, so I think that helps, too."

Blue Devils coach Brittany Lightel credited longtime Kent State softball coach Karen Linder, a Tallmadge native, with the idea. When Linder came to do a team-building event with the Blue Devils last year, she mentioned having a toy toilet in the Golden Flashes' dugout. Severns admitted she was skeptical when the toy toilet first appeared in the Tallmadge dugout, but it was certainly fitting Monday.

"It definitely helps a lot because obviously if there's a mistake and they bring themselves down, it really brings the whole team down," Severns said. "So we have that toilet obviously to flush it, so nobody else thinks about it anymore and just let it go and think about the next play."

While the Blue Devils flushed a tough bottom of the third, Severns actually didn't have much too much she needed to set aside prior to recording Monday's game-winning hit.

Indeed, no matter where Severns hit the ball Monday, it seemed to pay off for the Blue Devils.

Indeed, in her first two at-bats, Severns knocked in runs without even getting the ball out of the infield, as she had an RBI infield single with the bases loaded in the first and an RBI groundout to tie the score in the top of the fifth.

"She's definitely not a homerun hitter," Lightel said. "She's a contact hitter and she's one of the best ones that we have."

Given those first couple of at-bats, one could understand why the Greenmen infield drifted in when Severns came to the plate with runners on the corners in a tie game in the seventh. So Severns smacked an outside heater right back up the middle to knock home the go-ahead run.

"I think they were thinking I was going to bunt and I don't blame them because I really wasn't hitting great today," Severns said. "Once I saw the second baseman come up, I'm like, 'Okay, I'm gonna prove them wrong, I'm going to get out of the infield,' and I just kind of relaxed and I didn't think too hard about it."

Two batters later, Marley Queen, who was pinch-hit for an inning prior, returned to the lineup and skied a sacrifice fly to deep center for a critical insurance run.

"She was mad at me," Lightel said with a laugh. "And honestly like I don't care, I'm hoping she's mad because i'm hoping she comes back with a vengeance and she wants to put the ball in play and she does pop the ball up a lot, and that was like a perfect executed situation for her to put that ball in the air and give us a sac fly and she did it. She did what she needed to do."

Those two runs in the top of the seventh were plenty for Jackson, who retired the last 11 batters she faced Monday. Indeed, Jackson didn't allow a hit outside of the three straight two-out singles in the third and two doubles by Aurora sophomore Sophie Schecterman. In five out of seven frames Monday, Jackson set the side down in order.

It didn't hurt that Tallmadge centerfielder Sydney Becks made a couple of impressive snags racing into the left-field gap and third baseman Zoe Rensel had a diving stop at the hot corner. (Rensel also went 3-for-4 at the plate.)

"This year, I really trust my defense," Jackson said. "I've always trusted my defense, but this year is like we're really good this year and Zoe and Syd had really good plays this game."

After Jackson flushed the bottom of the third and tossed four stellar innings to cap the afternoon, it's now the Greenmen's turn to flush their second straight loss away.

Not that Monday was all bad for Aurora.

The Greenmen's two-out rally was certainly impressive.

After Schecterman sparked the home team in the bottom of the third with a leadoff double, Rayna Unverferth, McKennah Metzger and Sophie Retton delivered three straight RBI singles with two outs to take a 3-1 lead.

Metzger, the 2022 Suburban American Pitcher of the Year, showed poise just as Jackson did on the mound Monday.

The Greenmen junior battled through a 34-pitch top of the first to limit the damage to a single run. Metzger was far more efficient the rest of the way, tossing 16 pitches or fewer in the following five innings before Tallmadge got going in the seventh. Of the five runs Metzger allowed, just three were earned as an error apiece set the table for Severns' game-winning hit and Queen's sacrifice fly.

"It's sad the way it ended with the errors, but that's part of the game," Aurora coach Sam Petrash said. "You just try to overcome it and put yourself in a good position and we weren't able to do that today. We're really young and a lot of these girls haven't seen the rivalry before like this, so they're experiencing it for the first time."

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Tallmadge softball flushes tricky third, tops Aurora in critical clash