Ontario beat Clear Fork in a Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference battle

On Apr 13, 2022

BELLVILLE — She isn’t in a position to be the vocal leader just yet.

She is just a freshman after all.

But Ontario’s Eden Howard has no problem making sure her actions speak louder than words. She did just that on Tuesday night during a 12-1 Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference win over Clear Fork when she led off the game with a solo home run that set the tone for the rest of the evening.

The Warriors slugged three home runs en route to the blowout victory and none were more important than Howard’s to lead off the game.

“I just do it for my team,” Howard said. “I just went up relaxed because it is the first at-bat of the game. I just wanted to start us off on the right foot. I think it gave us a boost and sent everyone up to the plate with the confidence they can get a base hit.”

And the rest of the Warriors did go up to the plate with a lot of confidence after the lead-off homer. They collected 14 hits with 11 RBIs as a team and had four players record two or more hits. They scored two runs in the first, five in the fifth and three in the seventh for three big innings. Joslynne Frazier and Trista Jewell both crushed home runs and recorded three RBIs apiece while Kylie Snow had three hits and Olivia Kreger and Alex Switaj had two apiece. Howard, Snow, Autumn Taylor, Kerger and Hailey Crabtree had one RBI apiece.

Fraizer’s home run came during the five-run fifth as her three-run shot blew open the game and gave the Warriors a 6-0 lead. Jewell’s was a solo shot in the third.

In all, eight players recorded hits and seven collected RBIs with seven more scoring runs. It was a complete offensive outburst and one the Warriors have been waiting on.

“They are making me look smart,” Ontario coach Sean Snow said laughing. “One thing we have talked about early on is how our pitching is keeping us in games and how we are just waiting for our hitting to come around. We are super young. Tonight, we saw our hitting coming along. Credit to the girls because they are doing the work.”

Ontario (4-0) won its first three games and none were by more than three runs. It’s previous season-high in runs scored was nine in a 9-7 win over River Valley on April 5. Tuesday’s 12 runs was a welcome sight and it all started with Howard’s igniting home run.

“In this league with Clear Fork, River Valley, Highland, Shelby, you know you have to compete at your highest level and you also know every single day is going to be different,” Snow said. “When you can start the game with the first batter giving you a lead right away, that is a huge jump. It raised our momentum and our focus of the game. It was exciting to sit back and watch.”

And per usual, the Warriors’ pitching was as dominant as it has been all season. Frazier worked all seven innings allowing just one run on five hits with five strikeouts. The Warriors committed just two errors and none of them hurt. Howard was sensational at shortstop as well with some very tough plays made.

But the freshman isn’t about to let her team kick back and relax as the lone remaining undefeated team in Richland County after Madison lost to Mount Vernon on Tuesday night.

“The season is just starting so there is no time to be satisfied,” Howard said.

Clear Fork got on the board in the bottom of the sixth off of Renee Anders’ towering home run which avoided the shutout. The Colts had a pair of errors than led to four unearned runs.

First-year coach Chris Clapper pointed to the lead-off home run by Howard as the point where the Colts were sent reeling.

“It put us back on our heels,” Clapper said. “But that has been a theme for us. In the games that we have lost this year, we give up a lot of runs in the first inning. It demoralizes us a bit so that is something we are working on.

“I think the solution is mental toughness. As a new coach, I have to work on building team chemistry and that should help with our mental toughness when we are put in situations like we were tonight.”

It was Clear Fork’s fourth loss of the year, the Colts are 3-4, and in each of their four losses, they have given up one or more runs in the first inning including multiple runs in three of them.

Clapper is just taking over a program that had been run by Jeff Gottfried for 20 years so it is going to take time to get used to a new way. Once the Colts start to trust each other, Clapper sees wins on the horizon.

“At the beginning, it was a little rough because there is a lot of new coming from me and I am an outsider,” Clapper said. “I think we have made a lot of progress and it will continue to be a daily improvement that we will work on.”

Ontario is in the driver’s seat of the Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference race at 4-0 in the league. Tuesday’s win was a bit of a statement to the rest of the league.