Members of the East Jackson High School varsity softball team celebrate a district title at home Friday afternoon. Photo: Jeff Steers, JTV Sports.
By Jeff Steers
JTV Sports
It was rather evident it has been a while since the East Jackson High School varsity softball team has celebrated any kind of championship.
Two players grabbed the cooler following an 11-1 win over Concord in the district final in hopes of giving Coach Steve Csage a Gatorade shower.
They barely hit Csage despite the coach knowing what was about to happen.
East Jackson won its first district title since 1993 with a pair of wins at home Friday afternoon in the Michigan High School Athletic Association Division 4 district tournament.
The Trojans dispatched Tekonsha 15-0 in three innings in game one and beat a feisty Concord team 11-1 in the district final.
East Jackson will play the winner of the Petersburg-Summerfield district – to be contested on Saturday. The regional tournament will be at Sand Creek on June 8 with East Jackson scheduled to play the second game at noon.
The Trojans made quick work of Tekonsha in the district semifinal, winning 15-0 in three innings. Jordan Nicholson earned the shutout win on the mound and Livi Talmage and Alexis Brzezinski knocked in four runs apiece with three hits.
“We got crushed (10-0 and 16-1) at Hudson on Tuesday and we were ready to go today,” Csage said. “We took the attitude that every run mattered today.”
Every run mattered for Concord in an 11-10 win over Litchfield in the other district semifinal. The Yellow Jackets battled back from a 6-2 deficit to earn their seventh win of the season.
Runs were hard to come by in the district final. East Jackson scored one in the first inning on a single by Talmage.
That is where the score would stand until the fifth inning when the Trojans scored on a two-run single by Brzezinski.
Concord scored one run on a fielder’s choice cutting the deficit to 3-1.
But the flood gates opened for East Jackson in the sixth and seventh innings. The Trojans scored four times in the sixth inning on three hits and a pair of errors by Concord.
Hannah Saunders scored a pair of runs with a single in the seventh. A double by Talmage scored two more for East Jackson.
Nicholson struck out 10 batters in 10 innings of work for East Jackson.
“Jordan has been our best pitcher this season,” Csage said. “She has a majority of our wins.”
Csage said a tough schedule prepared East Jackson for the tournament wins.
“We have been seeing way better pitching (from opponents) this season,” Csage said. “The girls have worked hard to get to this point.”
Talmage finished the day with six hits and eight RBIs for the Trojans.
East Jackson is 10-13 this season while Concord finished with a 7-30-1 mark.
“We knew that we had hitting, but our fielding and game-situation play needed to improve,” CHS Coach Mackenzie Fairbanks said. “We got better throughout the season.”
