Paris wins AABHN Softball Championship

Paris Sports Report with George Le Gresley

The girl's Panther softball team started the quarter-final championship with a match against Simcoe High School. Maddie Hallman and Lauren Markle combined their pitching skills to shut out the opposition and earn a 13-0 win As well as pitching 3 innings, Maddie Hallman hit an inside-the-park home run.

In the Semi-Final, the Paris side faced Pauline Johnson and grade 10 student Sydney Kipp was on the mound. Surprisingly, Sydney has pitched two or three games this year; but came out pitching on fire striking out 14 PJ batters and securing a 15-0 win

On the other side of the bracket, the St John’s Eagles having a 30-1 season cruised through their side of their quarter and semifinals and into the championship game against Paris. Since most of the players on both teams had played with or against each other in leagues over the years, plus the two teams were in different pools during the above is the Paris Panthers Softball team that claimed the AABHN championship title on Thursday. regular season they had not played each other during the high school season. Coming into the championship game, the Panther girls felt a little nervous about facing the PJ side.

The Eagles started the game by shutting out the Panthers in the top of the first. Maddie Hallman started the first inning on the mound for Paris and the first three batters were out, one striking out and the other two flying out to fielders

The second inning the Paris batters surprisingly went out 1,2,3 again being shut out two innings in a row and St John’s scoring a run and a 1-0

Lead

In the third the Paris bats woke up, manufacturing runs by moving runners on singles and sacrifice bunts to take a 2-1 lead.

In the fourth inning, Maddie Hallman got her groove striking out three batters in a row and again the Panther side nickel and dimed to earn another run and a 3-1 lead.

The Panthers bats exploded in the top of the fifth inning, with Sydney Kipp’s bat hitting a ball deep to the fence and scoring a two-run insidethe-park home run.

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The team scored two more runs to take a 7-1 lead. Lauren Markle took over the pitcher’s mound at the bottom of the inning striking out three St. John’s hitters.

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The top of the seventh inning the Paris High side scored one more run and St John’s had one last chance to tie or win the game and went down to defeat 8-1 and the Panthers winning the AABHN championship

When Coach Weaver stated that the team’s success is by “playing through whatever the situation is, whether if we’re down or up, we have strong pitching and defence and clutch hitting.”

Unfortunately for the team, there is no regional or provincial high school championships to pursue, as the provincial body is doing only slo-pitch. The team is continuing on this weekend, with a tournament in Woodstock against high schools in Western Ontario Goodluck Panthers!

Pictured at the top of the page is Sydney Kipp on the mound for Paris; above is catcher Harley Shuart, and to the right is Callie Grischow at bat. Paris beat St. John’s 8-1 in the AABHN final on June 6th .

Photos courtesy of Brielle Murray