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Devils claim school’s 1st district softball title

Tribune Chronicle / Robert Hayes McDonald pitcher Bri Callow is pumped up after recording the final out in Thursday’s 5-3 Division IV district title win over East Canton.

NORTH JACKSON — After making the district semifinals for the sixth straight year and the district final for the third straight season, McDonald finally has a district softball championship to call its own for the first time in school history.

“I can’t believe it,” Blue Devils coach Michelle Titus said.

The Blue Devils used timely hitting and outstanding pitching to defeat the East Canton Hornets by a score of 5-3 in the Division IV Jackson-Milton District championship game.

Perhaps the biggest moment of the game occurred in the bottom of the sixth when Megan Ward broke a 3-3 tie with a two-run shot to right field to give McDonald its first lead of the game.

Ward was proud of her team after the game.

Tribune Chronicle / Robert Hayes Megan Ward of McDonald looks to her teammates with excitement while rounding second base after hitting a go-head two run home run in the bottom of the 6th inning.

“It honestly just feels really good knowing that we worked hard all season, and this is a very big accomplishment,” she said. “I was just trying to produce for my team, I knew that if we scored at least one run (in the sixth), we had to get three outs, and we could bring home a district championship.”

Titus was confident in her team after Ward’s clutch home run.

“I wasn’t sure that it went over at first. I knew at that point if we could hold them, because they were at the bottom of their order, that we’d be all right.”

Things didn’t start well for the Blue Devils, as the Hornets (16-6) scored three runs in the top of the first.

McDonald attacked back in the bottom half of the first, when Ward blasted a leadoff triple, and scored on an RBI single by Chelsea Sudol to make it a 3-1 game.

Tribune Chronicle / Robert Hayes The McDonald Blue Devils are the Division IV Jackson-Milton District softball champions.

The Blue Devils struck again in the bottom of the third, when Sudol brought Ward home again on an RBI triple, which was followed by an RBI single off the bat of Elise McMaster later in the inning to knot the game up at 3 runs apiece.

Neither team scored again until Ward’s big home run in the bottom of the sixth, which proved to be the game winning hit.

Sudol, who went 3-4 with two RBI, knew her team could fight back.

“No matter what, you just got to keep going, even if you’re losing, you just gotta keep it up,” she said.

After the first inning, Bri Callow pitched extremely well for the Blue Devils, by recording 11 strikeouts during the course of the evening, and limiting East Canton to only four baserunners during the final six innings of play.

Callow was just doing her job.

“It’s awesome, it feels great, it’s a blessing,” she said. “It always feels great whenever I get out there and go and pitch.”

The Blue Devils (17-4) battled through adversity by being down in both the semifinal and final round of the tournament, but Titus feels like being able to come back after being down is one of her team’s strengths.

“They’re very good this year at overcoming, like when we’re down, they can come back. It doesn’t affect them, they’re a really good team, and that’s hard to have. This is the first year I’ve had that.”

McDonald is doing this while fielding a young team. Sierra Schrader, the hero in the Blue Devils’ semifinal win over East Palestine, is the team’s lone senior. Cailey Titus and Ward are the team’s only juniors.

The win sends McDonald to to the Akron Regional semifinals where they will play Monroeville or Lucas at Firestone Stadium in Akron next Thursday at 5 p.m.

Titus is going to have her team prepared for the regional.

“We’re going to start all over. Take it one day at a time, and do what we know how to do.”

Ward agrees.

“We’re probably going to do some more hitting, just what we’ve been doing, just work on defense, and work even harder then we have.”

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