Softball: How Kenton Ridge completed its state title game comeback

Jun. 8—The run to consecutive state championships for Kenton Ridge was completed Sunday, June 7, with its 7-6 win against Newark Licking Valley in the OHSAA Division IV state championship game.

Kenton Ridge felt the hype all season, brushed it off as it came, and let its play on the field do the heavy lifting. It certainly was needed Sunday as the Cougars fell behind 6-0 in the third inning. KR kept swinging until its 64th straight victory was in sight and from there, the state’s top ranked team reached the finish line to conclude one of the state’s most historic seasons.

Here’s some of what the players and coaches said talking about the win and the season.

How the comeback happened

Every comeback needs a starting point. Six-run plays don’t exist in softball. The lead has to be chipped at until it’s gone in order to win.

Brenna Fyffe finished her high school career as the OHSAA career leader in RBI (231) and runs scored (215), and hit the second most home runs in a single season (24). Against Licking Valley, she uncharacteristically went 0-for-3.

It was a walk, however, to lead off the third inning that got things started. Jayden Davis hit a double to the warning track, Ivee Rastatter knocked one over the fence, and KR cut its deficit in half just that quickly.

“We came out and had four runs and started hitting better,” Cara Cammon said. “We were still down, but we had hit and we had taken the best pitcher out, one of the best pitchers in the state.

“That’s also when we knew was when they took their pitcher out.”

Three more hits in the inning completed that four-run frame for KR. Rastatter’s second homer in the fourth made it a one-run game

It felt inevitable that six runs would not hold up for Licking Valley. Panthers head coach Rich Dennis expressed after the game he shared the same viewpoint with his team after its big inning. At the same time, Licking Valley did get to the total and Rastatter had to find something in the circle to keep the Panthers from adding on.

KR head coach Sarah Schalnat said the home runs definitely helped, but she saw Rastatter’s demeanor coming back to the dugout played a bigger role.

“[Ivee] came in after the next inning and she says, ‘We got you coach.’ That was huge,” Schalnat said. “I knew right then Ivee was in the ball game, which is going to continue to get everybody in the ball game. I knew she was going to pitch great the rest of the time and she did.”

Rastatter said she spent time in the dugout working on her spin control as her teammates batted. She struck out three and didn’t allow a runner to reach until there were at least two outs in each of the last four innings.

KR went down in order in the fifth for the only time in the game, but it set up the sixth to bring up the team’s two defacto leadoff hitters to start the frame. Chloe Glass and Lily Foulk both reached and set up the power of the lineup to have three chances at bringing them home.

“I said it two days ago, this is [Chloe’s] ballpark. She’s able to produce, so there was no need to worry about sometimes a typical nine hitter, because she’s definitely not one of them and she does her job.

Schalnat and her team has consistently verbalized confidence in their abilities to bat at each spot in the order. It was as stressful of a situation as the team had faced all this season this time knowing it could be their final chances at the plate in the season.

And they delivered with confidence like they were already ahead. Like the way the scoring started for KR, Davis finished it by bringing both runners home on a base hit to right field and completing the comeback.

Not losing

Rastatter’s pitching record is 61-0 in the circle in the first two years of her high school pitching career after the title win.

She is one of 10 players on the roster to never have experienced a loss playing varsity softball in two seasons.

She was asked to describe what losing feels like. Rastatter admitted she was mostly stumped at the thought.

“We’ve been down in situations where we have been losing in the game,” she said. “What’s it like to lose? You just want to fight back, you know? Like, you have that feeling you want to fight back, and obviously we haven’t lost, but you know we have been losing and our team fights back really well.”

Rastatter said she eventually thinks the win streak will end and with that, they must be prepared for that feeling by knowing they do fight back afterward.

But what if they don’t lose?

“Well, that’d be great. I mean, that’s the goal, trying to win every game. Yeah, that would be so cool.”

The time together

With the lead acquired, Kenton Ridge was able to breath knowing they had overcome the deficit. However, they still had to get three outs in order to complete the championship run.

Players were asked about their feelings running back onto the field in the seventh inning knowing how close they were to securing a second straight title. Rastatter and Davis similarly acknowledged Licking Valley bringing up the heart of its order, along with not believing those three outs were a given, kept the focus off potential celebration plans and onto treating it like the 188 other innings played to that point.

“We talked all season about winning the inning, and so before they went out there, they got together. I had to wait for Ivee to come out to give her the ball,” Schalnat said. “That’s just what their mindset is to focus on what’s at hand, and that was just getting those three outs.”

At the same time, four seniors ran onto the field for the final time in their high school careers. Cammon, Annie Fincham, Fyffe, and Kendall Massie played their final three outs with the Cougars. They did so as successfully as the last 64 games have been.

“I just got, like, let’s call it my face tingles,” Fincham said as she began to shed tears. “Every out I was just excited because while my career was coming to an end, I was so happy that I got to do it with these girls.”

Massie got two of the final three outs, making a runner catch in right center to start the inning and finishing the win with a charging catch toward the infield. After 115 wins in four seasons, they were finished on the field but could do nothing but celebrate with one another and have tears of happiness in the moment.

Davis, a junior, couldn’t hold back her emotions as she thought about what it meant to have played with the entire team, her “best friends”, over the last three months together.

“We just have such a bond, like a good bond, and we just don’t want to leave each other,” Cammon said. “Yeah, we’re winning state titles together, but at the same time, we’re not going to be the same team that we were last year.

“I do think we’re just mourning not playing with each other anymore. And also are so happy that we got to go out with the state title again.”