NORTH RIDGEVILLE — Melissa Rennie expected a riseball, got it and with one swing booked a trip to Massillon next week for the Wellington softball team.
The home run that resulted held up behind the pitching of Melanie Conklin, and the Lady Dukes nipped Columbia, 1-0, on Thursday in a Division III district final.
The reward is a regional semifinal date with either Berkshire or Pymatuning Valley in Massillon’s Genshaft Park. The Dukes will be the home team in the 5 p.m. game. Berkshire and Pymatuning Valley met on Thursday in the Jefferson district final.
This is the third district championship in the history of the Wellington program, the second since 2005. The Dukes (20-4) have never advanced beyond the semifinal round. They lost one-run games in their two previous appearances. There was a 2-1 loss to Margaretta in 1987 and, having squandered a lead, a 3-2 heartbreaker to Warren LaBrae in ’05.
Conklin and Columbia pitcher Jen Solanics staged a memorable battle. Conklin struck out eight, hurled a two-hitter and pitched her way out of tight spots in the second, third and fifth innings. Solanics fanned 10, pitched her way out of a huge jam in the fourth and two little ones in the fifth and sixth. Neither pitcher walked a batter.
 “My curveball was working really good,” Conklin said. “I mostly threw that and whatever else to keep them off balance as much as I could and make them put the ball in play so our defense could get the outs. This is awesome, because it’s our senior year for a lot of us. We feel this is the year to do it. Everything has fallen into place.”    
Speaking of seniors, Dukes coach Tom Roth had thoughts on the subject.
 “I feel good for the seniors,” he said. “Last year we were close and the year before we were close. It’s nice to get there. When we went to the regional (in ’87), we didn’t know anything about softball. We just threw fastballs and kept ’em low. But over time, it’s progressed to finesse.”
Rennie belted the homer, her fifth of the season, leading off the fourth inning. It came on a 1-1 riseball. Rennie said she knew it was coming.
 “Her form was really low, she was really squatting down and she had thrown that pitch to me maybe five times in my previous at bat,” Rennie said of Solanics’ riser. “So I figured she was going to keep going with that because it was working for her today.”
Columbia (23-3) wasn’t out of the woods after Rennie’s clout.
The Dukes loaded the bases with no outs in the inning, but Solanics bore down. She got three straight outs, two strikeouts and a force play at the plate to end that threat. And she pitched out of trouble again when the Dukes had a runner at third in the fifth and one at second — Melissa Sawyer, who doubled — with one out in the sixth.
The Raiders threatened when first baseman Jenny Kus tripled with two out in the third. And Kus was in scoring position again in the sixth after she singled with one out and went to second on an error. Each time Dukes second baseman Brook Lewis ended the threat with nice plays on ground balls to the right side.
 “I just hustled as much as I could and threw them out,” said Lewis. “I did what I was supposed to do. I think we play well under pressure. Today we did.”
Kus, one of Columbia’s crop of productive freshmen, had the Raiders’ only hits. The Dukes’ Sawyer, a senior, had two singles to go with her double, and junior Cassie Gleisner had two singles. Wellington’s victory atones for a 2-0 loss to the Raiders during the regular season.
 “Melanie Conklin threw a heck of a game,” said Columbia coach Ken Richardson. “She was ahead of our batters and when we started to catch up to her in the later innings, they made the defensive plays.
 “You know, a home run is something really special and it’s dramatic,” he said of Rennie’s fourth-inning blast. “It got us down for a while and we almost spun out of control and let them take over the game. But Jen stood tall on that mound.”
Contact Bob Daniels at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.

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