Errors doom Camden-Frontier softball team as season comes to an end

By Bill Mullaly / Special to the Hillsdale Daily News

Camden-Frontier hung tough with Ottawa Lake-Whiteford for two innings but things changed in the third and the Bobcats went on to a 10-1 win in the Division 4 regional semifinals on Saturday.

Three runs in the third inning and four more in the fourth sent the Bobcats to the final game where they beat Petersburg-Summerfield 6-3.

Summerfield had beaten Homer 4-0 in the other semifinal.

The Redskins had just one hit in the first three innings as catcher Kara Bryner singled in the third inning.

And the Bobcats used three hits off of Redskins pitcher Morgan Warfield to take a 3-0 in the bottom of the third inning.

Megan Schwartzengraber came in for the final three innings, but things didn’t improve.

Two walks and two more Bobcat hits in the fourth plated four more runs and the game was all but over against a very good Bobcat pitcher. Only a solo home run by Erika Poikey in the fifth kept the Redskins from being shut out.

The only other Redskin hit in the game was a sixth inning single by Kim Bennett.

The Bobcats added a single run in the fifth and two more runs in the sixth to put the game away. The Redskins suffered 10 strikeouts and went down in order in the second, fourth and seventh innings.

Warfield gave up four hits, didn’t walk a batter and did record three strikeouts in taking the loss in the circle. Schwartzengraber allowed six hits, struck out four and walked two.

“We only allowed one earn run the entire game but we didn’t make the plays on defense,” said Redskin head coach Melissa Warfield. “We need to hit the ball well to be successful and Whiteford made the plays on our hits and we didn’t make the plays on their hits."

Camden-Frontier finishes at 22-7 after going 22-9 the year before with both seasons ending in the regional semifinal game.

“The story of this season was pretty much the same thing that being if we didn’t score enough runs and made  one or two errors then things would go downhill. We had a real good year overall but I was hoping we would play better in the regional game,” said Warfield, who returns her two top pitchers who are both sophomores.