WILLOUGHBY—Halle and Taylor Zupancic both hit home runs in leading South to a 14-4 five-inning win over visiting Jefferson on Friday.
Senior Taylor Zupancic broke open the scoring with a two-run homer to center in the first inning, and sister Halle Zupancic, a sophomore, hit a three-run blast in the fourth.
“As soon as I hit (the ball), I was like, ‘Wow, that felt great,’” Taylor Zupancic said. “Then I looked up, and there it went.”
Halle Zupancic had a similar feeling when she punished the ball in the fourth inning.
“It felt really good,” she said. “Right when I hit it off my bat, I was like, ‘This is good,’ Halle Zupancic said. “It’s fun to play together (with my sister), so hitting home runs together was a lot of fun.”
Before the two-run homer in the first, Halle Zupancic doubled to center field, moved to third on Summer Bliss’ single, and stole home for South’s first run. After Bliss was caught stealing second, Linell Dichazy walked, and Taylor Zupancic launched her shot to center for a 3-0 lead.
“You want to win the first inning,” said South coach Jeff Morganti of his teams’ early-inning magic. ‘What we mean by that is we want to score first, and when we’re in the field, we want our pitchers to get first-pitch strikes, and we want to get the leadoff (hitter) out. You always want to play with a lead.”
With Violet Dichazy keeping Jefferson’s offense at bay, the Rebels tacked on another run in the bottom of the second.
Makenna Owens drew a leadoff walk and moved to second on Savannah Jolly’s sacrifice bunt, and scored on a throwing error.
The Rebels broke the game open with a six-run third.
Bella Hostutler reached on an error to start the inning and stole second. She scored on Cheyenna Patton’s RBI single. Owens was hit by a pitch and Jolly walked to load the bases. Halle Zupancic then hit a one-out RBI double that pushed South’s lead to 7-0.
Bliss reached on an error that allowed two more runs to cross the plate. The Rebels added one more run on an error.
Jefferson got back into the game with a four-run fourth.
Mia Contenza and Kennidie Rogers hit singles and Rylee DeMattia launched a three-run homer that cut South’s lead to 10-3. Marilla Matuz and Allison Hill hit back-to-back two-out singles to set up another Falcon run when Ada Sirrine hit an RBI single.
The Rebels took the big inning personally and responded with a three-run inning of their own.
“We needed to show our resiliency,” Morganti said. “We want to try to play to win in every inning. If a team comes out and scores some runs on us, and we can come back and match, we feel as if we won the inning.”
Owens singled to start the inning and Matriano followed with a one-out single. Halle Zupancic cleared the bases with her three-run shot to right.
After the Falcons went quietly in the fifth, South ended the game in the bottom half of the frame when Hostutler doubled, moved to third on a wild pitch, and scored on Patton’s sacrifice fly.
With the win, South improved to 2-0 on the year.
“Confidence is huge,” Morganti said. “Having the kids play for one another. When you win ball games, it says a lot about the confidence (of the team); there’s still a lot of softball left to be played, but it’s nice to be 2-0 instead of 0-2.”
South has scored 24 runs on 21 hits and 14 runs on 14 hits in both wins through those two games.
“Our kids have put time and effort into a lot of tee and front toss work,” Morganti said of his teams’ offensive success. “We break down our swings. We don’t want kids to be able to swing at one particular pitch. When we do many of our tee swings, we’ll elevate the tee and move it inside and outside (the strike zone). When we front toss to them, we change speeds on (the throws). We want the throws to be as game-realistic as possible so that when we get in a game, everything we’ve done in practice they’ll see in the game. It’s just called the ‘Games approach’.”
With the Zupancic sisters leaving the yard and the Rebels collecting 12 hits as a team, their approach seems to be working.
“We’ve been hitting the ball extremely well through our scrimmages and first two games,” Morganti said. “We like to think that one through nine in our order can be a threat. Halle hit her second home run in as many days.”
Jefferson found some life in the top half of that fourth inning, plating four runs to narrow the South lead.
“Usually, the second or third time through the lineup, hitters usually figure out pitchers,” Morganti said. “Give credit to (Jefferson), and they timed Violet up a little bit. Hitters are going to do that, and we’re not expecting to shut teams out or limit them to two runs. Teams are going to score.”
Halle Zupancic led the Rebels with a 3-for-3 performance at the plate. She scored three runs and knocked in four. She also pitched a scoreless fifth inning and recorded a strikeout.
Hostutler went 3-for-4 with two runs scored and Bliss and Taylor Zupancic drove in two runners and scored one run each.
In the circle, Violet Dichazy picked up her second win in as many outings, going four innings while giving up four earned runs on seven hits with three strikeouts.
DeMattia led the Falcon offense with her 1-for-2 performance and three RBI, including her home run in the fourth.
Sirrine drove in the other Jefferson run with her 1-for-3 outing at the plate.
Contenza and Matuz both collected two hits for Jefferson in the loss.
South opens Western Reserve Conference play on April 3 when the Rebels host Kenston. Jefferson kicks off Chagrin Valley Conference play on March 30 with a home game against Lakeside.
