Indian Lake softball advances to first state championship game with 3-0 win over Johnstown

AKRON, Ohio – It isn’t how you start, but how you finish. And Indian Lake softball finished strong at Firestone Stadium on Thursday in a 3-0 win over Johnstown in the OHSAA Division III state semifinals.

In a scoreless game through five innings, the Lakers pushed three runs across in the sixth inning.

After Katie Roby led off the inning with a single, she was forced out at second on a grounder by Reece Martin, who then stole second. Haylee Edwards walked and then Mackenzie Dixon singled up the middle to score Martin, giving the Lakers a 1-0 lead.

“I knew that we had to start it off somehow,” Dixon said. “(I just had) to put something in play.”

Indian Lake pitcher Madison Brentlinger followed up with a two-run triple that scored two runs and gave the Lakers a three-run lead.

“She jammed me really like bad inside (on the pitch before),” Brentlinger said. “And then she decided to throw me high and outside and that's my favorite. I saw it coming in and I was like, ‘that's my ball.’”

Those runs came off relief pitcher Dakota Steffan, who stepped in after Macy Walters went down with a knee injury on her first pitch of the sixth inning. She tried to throw a warmup pitch after, but fell again and head coach Mike Justice decided she couldn’t go.

Through five innings, Walters had been perfect and had struck out six.

“(Walters) really had us off balance,” Indian Lake head coach John Stahl said. “What happened in the game, I feel sorry for her. It was unfortunate because it was a pitcher’s duel for a while and I never want to see that happen to anybody.”

On the other side, it was Brentlinger who went the distance and allowed just three hits and four walks while striking out five. After the Lakers made errors on the first two Johnstown hitters of the game, she was able to settle in and get out of the inning without any damage.

We call her ‘mad dog’ because she is a mad dog,” Stahl said. "Any time that you think that you're going to score off her and she gets in a jam, she finds a way to get us out of it.”

The Lakers will advance to their first state championship game when they play defending state champion Wheelersburg on Saturday at 10am.