For the second time in four seasons, three Lorain County schools are playing in regional softball tournaments.
At this point, there are only 16 teams left in each of the state’s four divisions, and the county is represented in three of them. This means that starting at
5 p.m. today, each of the local schools is only four victories away from a state championship. They are the same teams that reached this level in 2005.
Elyria, the top-ranked team in Division I, faces North Royalton in Clyde; Keystone, ranked first in Division II, tackles Canal Winchester in Bucyrus, and, in Division III, Wellington meets Pymatuning Valley in Massillon.
The numbers, however, are not the point. The point is that given the numbers, it’s obvious the quality of Lorain County softball has reached the level of that played in the traditional centers of dominance, Summit and Stark counties.
Consider this: 43 of Ohio’s 88 counties are represented in softball regionals this year. Of those, 30 counties are represented in one of the four divisions, 11 in two divisions. Only two counties — Lorain and Summit — are represented in three divisions. None has schools in all four.
But if three fewer girls had enrolled at Division III Columbia, the Raiders would have remained in Division IV. It is not unreasonable to think that with Columbia (23-3) playing in Division IV, Lorain County would have teams in all four divisions.
It might be impossible for local teams to exceed the accomplishments of Summit County schools, which have produced 32 state champions — nine by Akron Springfield, seven by Tallmadge, six by Archbishop Hoban. But parity, it seems, has been achieved.
If so, the only remaining question is how did it happen? Midview coach Mike Ives had a two-word answer.
“Dave Leffew,” said Ives, whose Middies won 20 games this spring for the second time in three years.
Leffew is the legendary former Keystone coach who brought the county its first state championship in 1999. Leffew retired from coaching at Keystone after that season. But he continues to give private pitching lessons with help from his daughter Amie, the No. 1 hurler
(24-0) on his ’99 team. He is also the pitching coach at Ashland University.
“The pitching quality around here is head and shoulders above most of the state of Ohio and Dave is mostly responsible for that,” Ives said. “And he hasn’t just worked with players in Lorain County. Ask the kids in his stable. They’re from all over.”
In fact, several pitchers playing for regional teams are Leffew students, including Elyria’s Tess Sito and her likely opponent this afternoon, Lauren Balodis of North Royalton. Wellington’s Melanie Conklin is a pupil of his and he formerly worked with Keystone pitchers Lauren Wagner and Kara Dill. There are others.
“Dave basically built softball in Lorain County,” said current Wildcats coach Jim Piazza. “We’ve seen some teams from other areas kind of come and go, sort of fade off. But the teams in our area have come on and we’ve sustained a certain level. Dave built a lot of interest in softball and the kids all want to be a part of it.”
And, said Piazza and Elyria coach Ken Fenik, a sort of trickle-up effect has developed as a result.
“The OGSO (countywide summer league for girls 8-18) coaches are doing a fantastic job of teaching fundamentals,” Piazza said. “The coaches in our district are educating themselves about softball and taking that to the younger kids. And there are more clinics now than ever before.”
Fenik, who posted his 300th career coaching win this spring, agreed.
“Another thing is girls know if they’re good and have good grades, they can go to college and play,” he said. “Also you have to look at the community itself in Elyria. The Little Leagues around town have a strong program and the coaches have been coaching our kids since they were 6 or 7. They deserve a lot of kudos for the things they’ve done.”
It wasn’t always so organized.
“It was hard when we started years ago,” Leffew said. “The top teams were in the Akron area. We wanted to play them, but they wouldn’t play us. So we started to run our own clinics so we and the teams around us could get better. It was obvious that the only way Keystone would get better is if the teams around us did. Success breeds success.”
Success. Amherst won 20-plus games again this spring and was ranked seventh in Division I in the state coaches association’s final poll. The Comets have been state-ranked several times this decade. Last spring, Avon Lake won the Southwestern Conference championship for the first time in 12 years.
In 2003, unranked and unheralded North Ridgeville knocked off top-ranked and defending state champion Elyria and 10th-ranked Amherst in consecutive district tournament games. And in the days of the old and lamented Lorain County Conference, epic battles raged among Keystone, Firelands and Wellington for years.
Former Firelands coach Jim Solomon used to say, “To win the Lorain County Conference, you have to be good enough to win the state championship.”
All the while, Fenik’s Pioneers continued to string together one 20-victory season after another. Fenik’s team won 30 games last year and his last two teams played in the Division I state championship game.
Four of Fenik’s seniors — Megan Bashak, Jen Bower, Jessica Bellottie and Jessica Mandula — have played on regional tournament teams every year since they were freshmen. They’ll be playing in their seventh regional game against North Royalton this afternoon.
“Because of the summer travel teams, girls are playing more often,” Fenik said. “They’re playing indoor (winter) ball, they’re playing in the fall. They’re playing every weekend in the summer. Obviously, the more you do something the better you’re going to be at it.”
Wellington’s Dukes, under the leadership of Tom Roth, are playing in their third regional.
“We’re at a point where the teams in our area aren’t afraid to go against anybody,” said the veteran Roth. “With the strong summer programs, the kids are playing a lot more. They play maybe 65 games in the summer and we play 25-30 during the high school season.
“Because of that, the kids today are a lot more experienced than they were years ago. Back then we played defense; we concentrated a lot of effort on defense. We threw a lot of fastballs and tried to keep ’em low. We were teaching the bare basics. Today, with the more experienced kids, we can teach softball.”
Contact Bob Daniels at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. 

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