NEW PHILADELPHIA — Most conference champions don’t end their regular season in tears.
But here stood Kennedi Endsley, alone in the outfield after Mount Vernon broke its final huddle Friday night, her eyes damp in anguish.
The Yellow Jackets (20-7, 11-3 Ohio Cardinal Conference) had already clinched a share of their fifth OCC title in six seasons on Thursday night, when they trounced Lexington on the road. They were going for the outright championship Friday, on the road against second-place New Philadelphia (18-6, 11-3).
But it simply wasn’t in the cards. Mount Vernon battled back from an early 4-1 deficit to take a 7-4 lead in the top of the fourth inning, but could not hold on. New Philadelphia homered in the fifth and rallied in the bottom of the seventh, tying the game on a double to center field before winning in walk-off fashion on a two-out, bases loaded single up the gap.
The Quakers came out on top, 8-7. Mount Vernon will share this year’s conference title with New Philadelphia and Madison (18-6, 11-3), which moved into the conversation this week by sweeping the same team the Yellow Jackets lost to Friday.
Most teams, and players, would be fine with a share of a conference title. And maybe Endsley will be eventually. But not Friday night.
Her tears – and her team’s collective disappointment – illustrate the standard to which Mount Vernon now holds itself. Five conference titles in six seasons. That goes back to 2017, when Endsley, the team’s senior captain, was in sixth grade.
All she’s seen is success. And while that makes days like Friday difficult, Mount Vernon head coach Ryan Pentz said he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“We have something we call our Jacket Bible. And inside that Jacket Bible is all of our rules and what we stand for and all those different things. And the number one thing is winning. I think sometimes, you know, when programs don’t embrace the idea of winning, then that’s where things can fall apart. I like the fact that these girls want to win,” Pentz said.
“They’ll rebound, they’ll bounce back. They’re athletes. They’re competitors. I had a conversation with Kennedi right there. You know, she’s hurt a little bit. But at the same time, she knows she’s a champion, and every one of them knows they’re a champion. And I tell ’em I’m proud of ’em each and every day. I was proud of ’em tonight.
“But it is still our culture. Our culture is, we want to win. We don’t care who we’re playing or what game it is. We don’t want to sit there and think, ‘Oh, you know, this is a non-conference game. It don’t matter.’ No. We want to win. And I love that in them.”
New Philadelphia started OCC play 10-0, but came into Friday night having lost its last three league games.
The Quakers fell to Mount Vernon on the road May 4, 9-7, then lost to Madison twice this week, 6-0 on Tuesday and 15-5 on Thursday.
They had to overcome a 7-1 deficit to win their sectional final tournament game Wednesday, scoring six runs in the bottom of the seventh before walking things off in the eighth.
Second-year head coach John Dupke said he wasn’t quite sure what to expect coming into Friday night’s regular season finale.
“This has been a challenging week. …” he said afterwards with a smile. “I didn’t know what team was gonna show up.”
As it turned out, he got a good one.
The Quakers got things started early, as a hard-hit grounder to short by Peyton Murphy plated runners from second and third, giving New Philadelphia a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the first inning (Mount Vernon scored in the top of the first inning on a fly-ball single from Hailey Rudrick that brought a runner home from third).
New Philadelphia expanded its lead in the second inning, when Reese Loveday singled to left field, scoring runners from second and third and making it 4-1.
But Mount Vernon was up to the challenge.
After McKenzie Krownapple got on base with two outs, Rudrick came through at the plate once again, hammering a home run to left field that brought the road dugout to life and narrowed the deficit to 4-3.
The Yellow Jackets took the lead back in the top of the fourth. After two more runners reached base with two outs, Carly Kennedy did the honors, plating both on a single up the gap that put Mount Vernon on top, 5-4.
The visitors built on their lead moments later, when Rudrick tripled to right field, scoring runners from second and third and making it 7-4.
Rudrick, a freshman right fielder, accounted for four of the Jackets’ seven runs on Friday. That didn’t come as a surprise to Pentz.
“Haley’s a gamer. Whether she’s on the basketball court or on the dirt, she’s a gamer. And her bat can be lethal and her arm can be lethal – we almost saw her throw a girl out at first base,” Pentz said.
“She’s young. She’s got some things to work on and get better at. But at the end of the day, the kid can go a long way with this sport, and she knows that and she’s working hard. And it’s obvious how hard she works with this sport.”
New Philadelphia fought back in the bottom of the fifth, when Ellie Mason rocketed a solo home run to center field, making it 7-5.
But the real magic came in the bottom of the seventh. After starting pitcher Sarah Ciereszewski kept Mount Vernon in-check over the game’s final three innings, the Quakers’ bats got going – and just in the nick of time.
Loveday started the frame with a line-drive single to right field. Then, after Ciereszewski flew out to center, Mason moved the needle, sending a grounder to short that moved runners to first and second after the umpire ruled the second baseman’s foot came off the bag during the force-out attempt.
Mount Vernon’s coaching staff contested the call, but it did not change. And moments later, New Philadelphia capitalized. Madison Wright doubled to center field, scoring both runners and tying the game at 7-7.
Mount Vernon intentionally walked Murphy, and after Sara Cardani popped out to second base, Sidney Vandall delivered, singling to right field and loading the bases with two outs.
Olivia Jackson did the honors. With a conference championship on the line, she singled up the gap, scoring Wright from third and sending the home crowd into a frenzy.
New Philadelphia, in its first season in the OCC, had won a share of the league title. Dupke said he was proud of the way his team fought to earn it.
“We got out there with that early start and I thought, ‘OK.’ Then we had the one bad inning, where Mount Vernon – and that’s a quality team right there, their program. But these kids here, we’re all young. We don’t start a senior. There’s not a senior in the lineup. We do have two,” Dupke said.
“But they just keep battling. And that’s what I like to see – being so young and they keep battling. You know, this OCC is competitive. I mean, we’ve learned a lot with the OCC. And then the travel, of course. I mean, being on this side of it. Everything’s (west). So it’s been a lot of travel and a lot of adjustments there, too.”
New Philadelphia has now won four straight conference titles in softball – in three different leagues. The Quakers won the East Central Ohio League two years ago before capturing ECOL and Ohio Valley Athletic Conference titles last spring.
“We’re pretty excited about that. …” Dupke said. “That’s our goal, (is to) win the conference. Well, we have our arch rival up here to the northwest in Dover. So our first goal is, we want to get them, and then the conference – of course, then it’s into the tournament. We’d like to get to regionals.
“The last four years, we had a dominant pitcher – she’s playing at Ohio State, Julia Miller. So we had to redevelop ourselves this year. … We had to redevelop ourselves, not having a kid that’s throwing 17 strikeouts a night. So it’s been a work in progress, but we’re excited about that OCC title.”
Mount Vernon, albeit disappointed in Friday’s result, still ended the season with a share of the title. Pentz said he was proud of how far this team had come.
“(This is) a young group, and they’ve played in some big moments and they’ve grown a lot. You know, you see the youth show up sometimes. But at the same time, they’re an extremely skilled group of girls. If you would’ve told me coming into this year, with this young of a team, that we would be OCC champions – whether it’s a share or not – I’m not sure I would have believed you,” Pentz said with a smile.
“They’ve done a heck of a job, and I couldn’t be any prouder of my senior class. This senior class led a bunch of young kids to an OCC title. Maybe they weren’t out on the field every day, maybe they were. But at the end of the day, their leadership was amazing.”
The OCC has only gotten tougher since Mount Vernon joined in 2016, Pentz said. This season – and this week in particular – proved that.
“When we first came into it, Clear Fork left. And we came in, and I wasn’t real sure about the conference at the time, I gotta be honest. I was only a spectator at that time. But this conference has gotten really, really good,” Pentz said.
“I mean, you have somebody like West Holmes beating Madison. Adding New Philly (this past year). This conference is a really good conference. I mean, Ashland may have had a down year, but they could have beat any team at any given time. It’s a deep softball conference. And it’s pretty spectacular, when you know you’re gonna have good games each and every night when you’re in the conference.”
New Philadelphia, seeded fourth in the Division II East District, defeated seventh-seeded Indian Creek, 8-7, in a sectional final matchup Wednesday. The Quakers will face fifth-seeded Steubenville in the district semifinals on Monday at 5 p.m. at Harrison Central High School.
Mount Vernon, meanwhile, will host 16-seed Olentangy Orange in a district semifinal matchup at the same time. The Yellow Jackets, seeded seventh in the Division I Central District, beat 36-seed Dublin Coffman, 12-3, at home on Wednesday.
Pentz knows his team still has plenty to play for. The Jackets are gunning for their second district title in three years. But he wanted to focus Friday on everything they’d accomplished so far.
No, it wasn’t an outright OCC title. But it was a title nonetheless.
“It was hard (tonight) because obviously, they wanted to win (the OCC) outright. They wanted to celebrate tonight. Their celebration was last night, you know, just differently. We did it over ice cream,” Pentz said with a smile.
“But at the end of the day, they know they’re OCC champs. They just wanted to win tonight; they wanted to go out that way. But they’re still OCC champs and for that, they need to be proud of themselves. Because not everybody can walk away at the end of the season saying they’re a conference champion.”
