Net effort

St. Marys takes runner-up at WBL tennis tournament

Compiled by Gary R. Rasberry

St. Marys needed a great day to try and capture at least a share of the program's sixth Western Buckeye League boys tennis title.

The Roughriders did their part, but in the end Shawnee was just a little better as the Indians won the league tournament on Saturday at the University of Northwestern Ohio and wrapped up the overall league title, having finished 9-0 in regular season matches.

St. Marys, looking for its first league crown since 1974, finished second overall for the first time since 2011. The Roughriders finished third in five of the past seven seasons.

Celina finished fifth in the tournament to take fifth in the overall standings, the highest finish for the Bulldogs since tying for third in 2018.

Both St. Marys and Shawnee placed all five spots in Saturday's semifinals, St. Marys put four spots in championship match, three in head-to-head matchups with the Indians.

In second singles, Roughrider Noah White faced Dawson Boninsegna of Ottawa-Glandorf in the semifinals, White overcame a sluggish second set to win 6-3, 0-6, 6-1 to advance and face Shawnee's Mason Latham in a battle of the top two seeds. Top-seeded Latham came away with a 6-3, 6-2 victory.

The Roughrider tandem of Ollie Chisholm and Korey Klosterman entered the tournament as the top seed in first doubles and defeated Elida's Brody Altenbach and Tommy Etzkorn 6-0, 6-4 in the semifinals to face Shawnee's Aidan Latham and Sailor Drury, who upset the second-seeded O-G team of Sam Warnecke and Gavin Bockrath 6-2, 7-5 to advance. The Shawnee team came away with matching 6-3 sets to take the win.

In second doubles, St. Marys' Trent Ruane and Lincoln James faced off against O-G's Noah Brinkman and Luke Schroeder in the semifinals, losing the opening set 4-6 before coming back with two straight 6-4 sets to reach the final against Shawnee's Brandt McGreevy and Sam Conrad. The Shawnee team won the opening set 6-2 before Ruane and James took the second set 6-2. McGreevy and Conrad took the final set 6-0 to claim Shawnee's third title of the day.

St. Marys' Jake Ackroyd reached the finals in first singles, beating Van Wert's Zach Stoller 6-3, 7-5 in the semifinals. In the championship, Ackroyd battled Elida's Leyton Staley for three sets before Staley won 7-6 (8-6 tiebreaker), 1-6, 7-5).

The third singles bracket featured both Celina and St. Marys. Celina's Logan Sapp, who entered as the fourth seed, upset top-seeded Chase Carpenter of Shawnee 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 to reach the final against third-seeded Xander Verhoff of Ottawa-Glandorf, who defeated St. Marys' Bradey Triplett 7-5, 2-6, 6-1 in the other semifinal.

Verhoff kept up his momentum in the final, defeating Sapp 6-2, 6-1.

Triplett bounced back to win the third-place match 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 over Carpenter.

In the back draw tournament, Celina's Carson Weitzel and Austin Siefring won the fifth-place first doubles matchup over Defiance's Kellan Harsha and Will Wittenmyer in a 8-4 pro set format. In second doubles, Celina's Caison Hall and Nick Johnson lost 7-9 in the fifth-place match to Bath's Bentley Webb and Brayden Wright.

Stoller received the league's Sportsmanship Award for his play this season.

The postseason gets underway this week. Celina will travel to Bowling Green State University for the Division I Findlay 2 sectional tournament starting Thursday. St. Marys returns to UNOH on Thursday for Division II sectional action.

SOFTBALL

Coldwater 5, New Bremen 4;

Coldwater 7, New Bremen 1

The Cavaliers took a pair of games from the Cardinals in the annual Strikeout For Cancer fundraiser at Memorial Park.

Cavs coach Kyle Ahrens also earned his 100th career win as head coach of his alma mater in the opening game of the twin bill.

In game one, which served as the teams' MAC contest, Dana Zahn's fourth-inning groundout scored Lanna Zahn for the go-ahead run and Alivia Klingshirn shut out New Bremen over the final innings to get the win. New Bremen led 4-0 after the top of the third before Coldwater plated four runs in the bottom of the inning to tie the contest. Chloe Frysinger and Harlow Heyne each had two hits for Coldwater while Halle Kuenning and Adilynn Albers each collecting a pair of hits for New Bremen.

In the wrapup, the Cavaliers scored three runs in the third inning and never looked back to get the sweep.

Chloe Frysinger doubled twice as part of a three-hit game. Klingshirn came back from game one and pitched five innings of five-hit shutout softball.

Olivia Thornton led New Bremen with two hits.

LINESCORES

Game One

New Bremen 202 000 0 - 4 7 4

Coldwater 004 100 x - 5 7 2

WP - Klingshirn

LP - Pape

2B - NB: Albers. CW: Frysinger.

Game Two

New Bremen 000 001 0 - 1 6 1

Coldwater 003 013 x - 7 10 1

WP - Klingshirn

LP - Pape

2B - NB: O. Thornton. CW: Frysinger (2), Klingshirn, Heyne, Kunk.

Records: New Bremen 6-15 (1-6 MAC), Coldwater 12-11 (4-3 MAC).

BASEBALL

Coldwater 10, Ottawa-Glandorf 3

The Cavaliers bounced back from Thursday's loss to Minster by pulling away for the win over the Titans in Glandorf.

Coldwater led 3-2 through five innings before plating three runs in the sixth as a Braxton Taylor single and back-to-back bases-loaded walks brought home the runs. Caleb Schroer, who hit a solo homer in the second inning, added an RBI single as part of a four-run seventh.

Karsyn Homan pitched six innings of seven-hit ball to get the win.

Taylor and Derek Dues each had two hits for Coldwater.

LINESCORE

Coldwater 012 003 4 - 10 8 2

O-G 002 000 1 - 3 8 5

WP - Homan

LP - Duling

2B - CW: Dues. O-G: Aldrich.

HR - CW: Schroer.

Records: Coldwater 17-2, Ottawa-Glandorf 9-9.

St. Marys 6, Delphos St. John's 2

The Roughriders plated three runs in the bottom of the fifth to break a 1-1 tie and get the win over the Blue Jays at K.C. Geiger Park.

Reese Howell doubled home Caleb Rohrbach with one out in the fifth to put St. Marys in front. After Howell scored on a wild pitch, Aiden Meinerding singled home Preston Rupert to make it 4-1. Rohrbach later added an RBI single and Kasey Gross's groundout brought home another run.

Blake Dingledine pitched five innings to get the win for St. Marys. Howell wrapped up his day going 3-for-4.

Andrew Elwer went 3-for-3 with two RBI for St. John's.

LINESCORE

St. John's 000 010 1 - 2 7 0

St. Marys 010 032 x - 6 11 1

WP - Dingledine

LP - Clark

2B - DSJ: A. Clark, Lindeman. SM: Meinerding, J. Green, Howell.

Records: Delphos St. John's 10-5, St. Marys 12-6.

Lincolnview 14, Parkway 1

(5 innings)

The Lancers used an eight-run fourth inning to pull away for the win over the Panthers in Middle Point.

Gavin Evans and Garrett Mosier combined to limit Parkway to a hit. Perry Schwieterman broke up the no-hitter with a third-inning single.

LINESCORE

Parkway 100 01 - 1 1 2

Lincolnview 213 8x - 14 10 0

WP - Evans

LP - Beveridge

2B - L: Young, Zielke, Price.

3B - L: Overholt.

Records: Parkway 8-14, Lincolnview 13-3.

Crestview 7, Fort Recovery 6

The Knights rallied from a 5-4 deficit to beat the Indians in Convoy.

No other information was available.

TRACK AND FIELD

Ada Invitational

New Knoxville had a final tune-up before the Midwest Athletic Conference meet in Hardin County.

The Ranger girls finished eighth with 39 points with the boys taking 14th with 15 points.

Avery Albers won the girls discus while sister Addison won the high jump. Kinley Rutschilling added a win in the long jump.