Claire Ochs’ “perfect bunt” scores walk-off run for Lady Giant softball over Sandusky

FREMONT – A defensive play set the tone for a thrilling walk-off victory for the Lady Giant softball team.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, Ross coach Tony Hill wanted Claire Ochs to drop a bunt. Ochs, not feeling confident she could get the bunt down, swung away instead, getting a base hit.

The following inning, Ochs made a tremendous diving catch in the left field. That catch gave Ochs the confidence she needed when Hill called for Ochs to put down a bunt for a squeeze play, batting in the bottom of the seventh inning, with the game tied and with Gabby Zuniga as the winning run on third base.

“She made a fantastic diving catch in the outfield …so she had a ton of momentum going into that at-bat,” Hill said. “I was like, ‘If we’re going to get one down, this is going to be the at-bat to do it. And she’s been a very strong bunter for us all year. She has quite a few sacrifice bunts.

“She laid down and absolutely perfect bunt and that did it. Gabby could have scored standing.”

Ochs’ perfect bunt brought home Zuniga for the game-winning run, 12-11, capping a tremendous Lady Giant comeback that saw Ross trail 7-2 after the third inning and 11-5 midway through the fifth inning.

The win could be just what the doctor ordered for a team in desperate need to feel good about itself and each other after an emotional, tumultuous loss to Central Catholic last week.

“We took Saturday, Sunday and Monday off, we gave ourselves a long weekend to let everybody cool down,” Hill said. “Coaches met and evaluated some things and decided how we wanted to go about doing stuff. We spent all of Tuesday’s practice meeting with the girls and explaining everything about how we wanted to move forward.

“This one went a long way for (moving forward). We’re getting there.”

The Lady Giants dug themselves a deep hole to climb out of thanks to seven fielding errors, leading to 10 unearned runs by the Blue Steaks.

Offensively, Ross got offense from throughout its lineup. The Lady Giants collected 15 hits, three from Ochs and Morgan Englund while Braelyn Horn, Zuniga, who had a triple, Paige Risch and Maya Lenke all collected multiple hits.

While winning games with that many errors will be the exception rather than the norm, Hill was pleased to see his team battle back despite the miscues.

“I’m really proud of the way they bounced back today,” Hill said. “It was a very emotional win. We had a tough week, getting beat by Ursula (Wednesday), we had some injuries…that was one if we have a healthy team, that is a game we can win. But its’ always good to beat Sandusky. There is no love lost there.”

The win improves the Lady Giants’ record to 3-7 overall. Ross hopes the happy emotions from Thursday carry over to Friday when the Lady Giants host TRAC rival Findlay.

“Tomorrow will tell a lot,” Hill said. “Findlay stole one from us two years ago and we just haven’t…we look at Findlay as a major rival in our conference that we want to beat. We’ll see how we come out tomorrow. They’re a good hitting team so if we go down early, how we respond will tell us a lot about if our messages are taking hold. But I don’t think we could have any more momentum going into that game.”

Box score		1	2	3	4	5	6	7		R	H	E
Fremont Ross		0	0	2	3	0	8	4		17	22	1
Marion Harding		0	0	2	0	3	0	1		6	12	1
TEAM	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	2B	3B
Rich	6	4	5	4	0	2	0
Horn	6	3	4	2	0	2	0
Zuniga	3	0	1	4	0	1	0
Logan	2	1	1	2	0	0	1
Dodson	4	2	2	0	0	0	0
Risch	5	1	2	0	0	0	0
Lenke	4	1	1	1	1	0	0
Taylor	2	2	2	0	1	1	0
Burmeister	5	1	2	1	0	1	0
Ochs	5	2	2	0	0	0	0
TOTALS	42	17	22	15	2	7	2
SB -- Horn, Taylor (3)
HBP -- Dodson, Taylor (2)
Team LOB -- 9
Pitching	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
Zuniga	2.2	1	0	0	0	4
Englund	4.1	11	6	6	6	5