ThisWeek Olentangy Valley News
May 29, 2014
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Baseball
Girls Lacrosse
Liberty beats Olentangy in district final
Braves advance to state tourney
By SCOTT HENNEN THISWEEKSPORTS.COM
By BRAD EMERINE THISWEEKSPORTS.COM Olentangy High School girls lacrosse coach Allison Neff planned to put her connections to work as she prepared the Braves for the Division I state tournament. The Braves, who are 18-1, play Cincinnati Sycamore (180) in a state semifinal at 5:15 p.m. Friday, May 30, at Thomas Worthington. The winner plays Medina (16-2) or Mason (145) for the title at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 31, at New Albany. “I know the coaches at Sycamore and I know their philosophies and the way they like to play,” said Neff, who is the girls director of Titanium Lacrosse and played attacker for Ohio State. “I will call around and should be able to get reports on just about any team in the tournament, but it is up to our girls to execute and play our style and do what we do best.” Sycamore (first), Medina (second) and Mason (third) were atop the laxpower.com state poll last week, with Olentangy sixth. Medina won state titles in 2010, 2011 and 2012 before Upper Arlington snapped the run last season. “Sycamore is an outstanding team with a lot of skill and has been the No. 1 team in the state almost all season,” Neff said. “They have all-around great stick skills and they move the ball well in a motion offense.” The Braves will be making their first state tournament appearance since 2005, when they won the title in Division II. They advanced by beating visiting Massillon Jackson 9-8 in
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Liberty’s Jacob Niggemeyer (bottom) is mobbed by teammates after striking out Joe McGuinness of Olentangy for the final out as the Patriots beat the Braves 5-3 in a Division I district final May 23 at Ohio Dominican. PAUL VERNON/THISWEEKSPORTS
Strength versus strength was on display with the game on the line as the Olentangy and Liberty high school baseball teams met in a Division I district final. Liberty ace Jacob Niggemeyer faced Olentangy cleanup hitter Joe McGuinness with two outs and two on in the seventh inning and the Patriots holding a two-run lead May 23 at Ohio Dominican. McGuinness had homered earlier in the game. This time, Niggemeyer gained the advantage, striking out the junior slugger to preserve a 5-3 victory that gave second-seeded Liberty its first district title. “I wanted to go after him,” Niggemeyer said. “I had my good stuff and he hits good stuff. I wanted to see if I could get him.” McGuinness hit a solo home run to right field in the third to give the 15th-seeded Braves a 3-0 lead. It was his fifth of the season. “That was power versus power,” Liberty coach Ty
Brenning said of the matchup. “The kids love moments like that. You just let things go and hope it goes your way.” The sixth-ranked Patriots, who are 25-5, advanced to play Pickerington North (198) at 5 p.m. Thursday, May 29, in a regional final at Dublin Coffman. The winner advances to a regional final at 5 p.m. Friday, May 30, at Coffman against seventhranked Grove City (23-5) or Gahanna (15-12). “(Pickerington) is a good baseball community, the (North) kids work hard and are well-coached,” Brenning said. “It’s funny because you can repeat that about Grove City and Gahanna in the other regional semifinal. They are all three super programs not only in central Ohio, but statewide.” The state semifinal is June 6 at Huntington Park, and the final is June 7 at the same venue. In the district final, the Braves, who finished 15-12, scored a pair of runs in the
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Softball
Patriots win first district championship
By AARON BLANKENSHIP THISWEEKSPORTS.COM
Olentangy Liberty High School softball coach Bob Lee emphasized to his players the importance of putting the ball in play before his team faced Delaware in a Division I district final May 23 at Pickerington Central. That strategy ultimately paid diviGIRLS >> B3 dends for the eighth-seeded Patriots as
they consistently tested the secondseeded Pacers’defense until they scored the go-ahead run on an error in the top of the seventh inning. Liberty won 2-1 for its first district title. “I told the girls that they just needed to hit everything down and put the ball into play because the infield was hard and the wind was blowing in,” Lee said. “We started the game with a strikeout,
but it was the only one we had. Delaware’s defense kept making plays, but they eventually made an error late in the game and that opened the door for us to win the game.” The Pacers took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the fourth when Ohio University recruit Mikayla Cooper hit a home run. Kristen Adkins answered with a solo homer in the top of the fifth to tie the
score. “Everyone told us not to pitch to Cooper, but we did, and she hit one out on us,” Lee said. “We made sure we walked her the next time she was up. Luckily, our big slugger, Kristen, was able to hit one out, too, to even it up.” After Madison Kadlic led off the top of the seventh with a single, Cooper
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