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The girls softball state tournament was first played in
the late 1970�s, 1978 to be exact. Through the year
2000 the participating schools were divided into three
categories, Class A-AA-AAA from 1978-1989, and Division
I-II-III from 1990 to 2000. In 2001 a Division IV was
added.
While the state tournament has always been for
fast-pitch softball, over the years the girls around the
state have played both fast-pitch and slow-pitch. In
fact, on occasion the same team has been known to play
both a fast-pitch and a slow-pitch schedule during the
same season. However, the majority of the teams playing
softball have historically played fast-pitch. There
could be any number of reasons for this; however, the
main one is undoubtedly because that is the type of
softball that is played at the college level. If a high
school girl wanted to play softball at the next level,
and possibly earn a college scholarship as well, then
she had play fast-pitch.
This predominance of participation in fast-pitch over
slow-pitch is also the main reason that the state
tournament has always been in that form of the sport.
By OHSAA rule, a sport needs to be participated in by at
least 150 schools to become eligible for its own state
tournament. In 1978, fast-pitch softball fulfilled that
criteria and was granted its own tournament. By 1991
more than three-quarters of the schools playing softball
(612 out of 830) were playing the fast-pitch variety.
However, the proponents of a slow-pitch softball state
tournament were not quite ready to throw in the towel.
In 1991, while the slow-pitch coaches association, known
as the Committee for Slow-Pitch Softball, was lobbying
the OHSAA for an official state tournament, they started
their own unsanctioned tournament to give the girls on
these teams something to shoot for. What follows is a
brief history of the slow-pitch softball state
tournament, perhaps the least known of Ohio�s high
school state championships.
For the slow-pitch state tournament the schools were
divided into just two divisions, I and II. Two regional
preliminary tournaments, numbering up to two dozen teams
from each division, were held to determine those teams
that would go on to the state finals. The Southwest
Classic (southern regional) was held in Cincinnati, and
the Northeast Ohio Slow-Pitch Softball Tournament
(northern regional) was held in Cleveland. The top four
finishers in each double elimination regional tournament
would then meet in the double elimination state
tournament, which was usually held at the end of May in
Mt. Vernon.
The slow-pitch state tournament was held from 1991 to
1998. In 1997 and 1998 it was called the World Series
of Softball, with the teams from both divisions playing
together for a single championship. Showing that bigger
is not always better, Division II teams won both of
those combined championships.
With but one exception, the slow-pitch state tournaments
were dominated by the Cleveland area teams. Cincinnati
Glen Este, which finished second to Trinity High School
(Garfield Heights) in 1991, was the only southern school
to capture a slow-pitch state title when the Trojans won
the Division I championship the following year by
defeating Trinity. (Oddly enough, Trinity�s nickname is
also the Trojans.)
In Division I the other champions were Eastlake North
(1993, 1994) and Willoughby South (1995, 1996). The
Division II championships were dominated by two teams,
West Geauga High School and Cleveland�s Villa Angela-St.
Joseph. The Wolverines of West Geauga played in six
slow-pitch championships, winning the Division II title
in 1991 and 1994. The Lady Vikings of Villa Angela-St.
Joseph were the only team to win three consecutive
slow-pitch state championships, taking the Division II
title in both 1995 and 1996, and winning the combined
�World Series� in 1997. They finished second in the
1998 World Series to overall champion Lake Catholic of
Mentor.
While these tournaments and championships were
technically unsanctioned, you would have had a hard time
convincing the winners that they were not state
champions. As Harrison High School Athletic Director,
Mike Schiering, put it in 1991, �A state tournament is a
state tournament. One team can still say it�s the state
champion.�
In Ohio high school athletics we are used to having the
teams from the bigger schools, with their larger student
populations to choose from, dominate athletic
competitions, especially when teams from the larger and
smaller schools play against each other. This is most
likely true for every other state around the country as
well. However, at least in Ohio, the girls fast-pitch
softball tournament is a stunning exception to this
rule. Virtually none of the large co-ed or all-girl
schools that we traditionally associate with athletic
success has ever won a softball state championship.
Canton McKinley, Massillon Washington, Cincinnati St.
Ursula, Cincinnati Princeton, Regina (South Euclid),and
Upper Arlington, to name just a few, have never won a
softball state championship � or even advanced to the
championship game
Going one step further, teams representing the major
cities of Ohio have also been pretty much shut out of
the winner�s circle when it comes to producing
fast-pitch softball champions. Cleveland, Cincinnati
and Dayton have never been able to claim a softball
champion, while Toledo (St. Ursula Academy, 2004) and
Columbus (Bishop Ready, 1995) can claim just one each.
So, who are Ohio�s �Diamond Darlings,� our �Queens of
the Sandlots�? The hands down winner, and home to 21
state softball championship teams is Akron. If you
include the adjoining city of Tallmadge, the Akron area
total jumps to 28. No other city or area of the state
comes even close to this fantastic accomplishment.
Leading the way in Akron�s softball success is that
city�s Springfield High School with its total of nine
state championships, the most for any school in the
state and tied for #6 all-time for softball state
championships by a single school in the country. The
other Akron schools to win state titles are Archbishop
Hoban - 6 (1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1991, 1992),
Manchester - 3 (1979,1990,2001), St. Vincent-St. Mary �
2 (1979,1984), Ellet � 1 (1996)
The Springfield Spartans were led to the top of the
softball world by head coach Ray Fowler, who was the
Spartans� mentor from 1978-1999. Softball was just a
club sport at Springfield High School until 1978.
Fowler, then an assistant football coach, was asked to
lead the girls in their initial varsity season that
year, and he jumped at the opportunity to become a head
coach for the first time. That first season must have
seemed somewhat magical for Fowler and his Spartans, as
the team went 17-2 and won the state�s first Class AAA
girls fast-pitch state tournament championship.
If may have seemed all too easy for Springfield to win a
state title, but �reality� set in over the next nine
years. Although the Spartans never had a losing season,
in fact their winning percentage was quite high, they
were looking like some of those �one shot wonders� that
win a state title in the first year of a tournament, but
then never even make it back to the tourney, much less
win it. But Ray Fowler really got into softball,
learned the sport inside and out, and passed along what
he had learned to his girls.
It all paid off in a big way beginning in 1988. That
year, led by ace pitcher and Summit County �Player of
the Year� sophomore Carla Brookbank, the Spartans posted
their first 30-win season, finishing 30-2 and capturing
the Class AAA championship. Brookbank was a perfect
26-0 on the mound, with three no-hitters, 13 shutouts
and 207 strikeouts. She also led the team with her bat,
hitting .450 and knocking in 35 runs. The next season
it was more of the same as the Spartans, and Carla
Brookbank, went 28-1 (the lone defeat by a 1-0 score) in
winning a second consecutive Class AAA championship.
Brookbank was again named the Summit County �Player of
the Year,� with a 0.19 ERA, .400 batting average and 27
RBI to go along with her outstanding won-lost record.
Carla Brookbank was positioned to lead her team to a
record third consecutive state softball championship in
1990, but during the 1989-1990 basketball season she
suffered a knee injury that wiped out her senior year of
softball. This may have slowed down coach Fowler�s
team, but it did not stop them. Posting a 25-3 mark,
the Spartans won a record third consecutive Class
AAA/Div. I state championship.
In 1991, the Spartans posted their second 30-win season
against just two losses. Unfortunately, one of those
defeats came in the Division I championship game, a 9-1
thrashing at the hands of Perrysburg High School.
That defeat in the �91 title game was just a small
(well, maybe not so small) bump in the road for the
Spartans. From 1992-1995 they would set a record for
team and individual achievement that has yet to be
equaled. With an overall won-lost mark of 114-5, the
Spartans of coach Ray Fowler won four consecutive
Division I championships. (Since 1988 they had played in
eight consecutive Div. I title games, winning seven of
them.) Leading the team all four of those seasons was
one of the state�s greatest high school softball
pitchers, Alanna Barker.
In her four years with the Spartans, Alanna Barker set a
state record with 93 victories, against just three
defeats. In each of her four seasons she was the
winning pitcher in both the Division I semi-final and
championship game, allowing just five earned runs in 57
innings in those games, two of those victories being
no-hitters.
During her senior season, Alanna was simply brilliant as
she pursued the state record for most career victories.
Needing 28 wins to tie the old mark of 90, she was the
starting pitcher in all 32 of her team�s games. She won
31 of the 32 to set a new record (since broken by Molly
Binz of Kenton Ridge High School with 108, 1999-2002),
but even the game that she lost was spectacular. In
that game, a 1-0 loss to Marlngton High School, Alanna
pitched a no-hitter, but lost the game on an error and a
passed ball.
The Springfield Spartans advanced to the tournament for
the ninth consecutive year in 1996, but lost in the
semi-finals. That would prove to be Ray Fowler�s last
chance for a state championship, as he retired from
coaching after the 1999 season. His record in 21 years
as the Springfield softball coach (there were no spring
sports at Springfield High School in 1986 due to
financial concerns) is eight Division I state
championships, a brilliant 472-76 won-lost mark, and a
winning percentage of .861. Fowler�s victory total
places him among the top 30 coaches in the country, and
his winning percentage is the fourth best all-time in
the nation for coaches with at least 325 victories.
As we have seen with Alanna Barker and Carla Brookbank,
one good pitcher, backed by teammates that can play
solid defense and score a few runs, can take a team a
long way. Another stunning example of this is Jamie
Wonderly of Gibsonburg High School. From 2001 to 2003,
Ms. Wonderly very nearly duplicated Alanna Barker�s
incredible playoff performance. In those three seasons,
Jamie won all three Division III semi-final and final
games to give her team three consecutive state
championships. In those games Jamie pitched five
shutouts and allowed just one earned run.
In 2004, even without Jamie Wonderly, the Golden Bears
very nearly tied Springfield�s record of four
consecutive state championships. With the score
deadlocked at 1-1 in the top of the seventh of the title
game, Crestline High School scored the go ahead run on a
double, a sacrifice bunt and an error. Gibsonburg
failed to score in the bottom of the inning and saw its
championship string end at three in a row.
While the game of slow-pitch softball is dominated by
offense and hitting, the name of the game in fast-pitch,
as we have seen, is usually pitching. Keystone High
School in LaGrange (Lorain County) has the winningest
high school softball team in the state (628-117, .843),
and a great percentage of those wins are due to its
pitchers, many of whom were developed by former head
coach Dave Leffew. Leffew coached the Wildcats to 428
victories from 1980-1999 (and a national eighth best
winning percentage of .844), and the top notch pitchers
that he developed are a major reason for his team�s
success. Seven of his hurlers were named to the
all-state team, four of them to the first team,
including his daughter, Amie, in 1999.
Even though Leffew moved on to the college ranks after
the �99 season, there has been no drop off in the
quality of the Wildcats� pitching staff. If anything,
to the great dismay of Keystone�s opponents, it may have
gotten even better. Since 2000, three other Wildcats�
hurlers have been named to the All-Ohio first team. One
of them, Brittany Robinson, earned the honor twice
(2002,2003). Last year, Kristie Malinkey did Brittany
one better as she earned her third consecutive first
team All-Ohio placing. In the 2006 Division II state
championship game, Kristie threw a perfect game. It was
the seventh of her career (part of her 15 no-hitters),
but it was the first time that any girl had ever pitched
a perfect game in a state championship final.
Fast-pitch softball may be up to 80% pitching according
to those who claim to know, but a team still has to have
something of an offense in order to score the runs that
win games. Some of Ohio�s teams and players have
managed to make a name for themselves on the national
level from what they have been able to do on the
offensive side of the game. For instance, the team from
Shelby High School scored 433 runs in 1979, the eighth
highest seasonal total in the country. Another eighth
place national ranking for runs scored goes to the team
from Defiance High School, which scored 57 runs in a
game against Liberty Center in 1979. Also in 1979,
Class A state semi-finalist New Madison Tri-City High
School averaged 17.6 runs per game, the third highest
average in the country. On May 27, 2001, West Chester
Lakota scored 30 runs in one inning in a game against
Dayton Belmont, the third highest single inning run
production ever.
While Akron may be the home of the most softball
championship teams in Ohio, it is also the home of some
of the state�s all-time best hitters. Specifically, we
are talking about that city�s Manchester High School.
In a career that spanned the years1989 to 1992,
Manchester�s Julie Swain collected 327 hits, at the time
the highest total in the country, and still good for #2
on the national all-time list. Her single season total
of 103 hits (1991) is also second best in the country.
Right behind Julie in third place on the career hits
list is her teammate Jenny Bennett, who from 1988-1991
collected 313 safeties. Another of Julie�s teammates,
Shawna Brown, rapped out 101 hits in 1991, also good for
#3 on the all-time list, while another Manchester
player, Susan Buckley, collected 100 hits in 1986 for
fourth place on the all-time chart.
Jessica Hibbard of Fairport Harbor High School made her
hits count for something. In a single game in 1998 she
collected seven RBI�s in a single game, as did Tiff
Stevens of Sheridan High School in Thornville in 1998.
Both are ranked #3 on the all-time list. Ms. Hibbard,
however, was not a �one game wonder.� For her career,
1997-2000, Jessica drove in 207 runs, the fifth highest
RBI total in the land.
Ohio�s girls can not only collect the hits and RBI�s,
and they can also hit for average. Marty Imhoff of
Shelby High School holds a career batting average of
.582, #10 in the country, while Maria Benza of
Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy hit .727 in 2002, the
fourth highest single season average ever.
Finally, Jen Snyder of Crestview High School used her
speed to steal 10 bases in a single game on May 5,
1997. That remarkable achievement places her at #3 in
the national record book. |
