AKRON — It was another one of those days when Melanie Conklin played nearly flawless softball. Another top pitching job, big day at the plate.
In fact, the Wellington senior ran into just one little glitch in the heat and humidity of Thursday afternoon. It happened in the top of the seventh inning of the Lady Dukes’ state semifinal game with West Liberty-Salem (31-2), the second-ranked team in Division III.
 Laboring in a scoreless tie, Conklin had allowed just two hits when the Tigers’ catcher and cleanup batter, Haleigh Hickenbottom, walked to the plate to lead off the inning. She had disposed of the slugger on swinging strikeouts each of her first two times at bat.
This time, Conklin fell behind in the count, 2-0, but quickly caught up when Hickenbottom fouled off the next two pitches. Then Conklin threw a pitch Hickenbottom couldn’t refuse.
“I called for a curveball,” said senior catcher Melissa Sawyer. “It just didn’t curve a lot.”
“Well, it curved a little bit,” Conklin said in the Firestone Stadium interview room. “Just not enough.”
“Yeah, it curved like this,” joked Dukes coach Tom Roth, who indicated a long vertical curve with his right hand — roughly the trajectory of the ball as it cleared the left-field fence.
Hickenbottom’s home run, her second of the year, put West Liberty-Salem in control 1-0. And although Conklin easily retired the next three batters, the Dukes were just three outs from extinction heading into the bottom of the seventh.
In the final analysis, Conklin’s glitch didn’t matter.
The Tigers ran into a little glitch of their own after the infield had retired Wellington’s first two batters on routine grounders. They had the Dukes one out away from calling it a season.
The glitch happened on another routine grounder hit by Wellington second baseman Brooke Lewis. This glitch mattered.
Lewis, batting ninth, hit the first pitch to the right side. The Tigers booted it, Lewis reached and Conklin, the leadoff batter, walked to the plate with her team’s fate in her hands. She hit the first pitch to the fence in right field for a triple that sent Lewis motoring home with the tying run.
“I just swung as hard as I could at the best pitch I could find,” Conklin said.
“As soon as Mel got that hit, I just kept running and running as fast as I could,” Lewis said. “I thought it was going over, but I waited for a second to make sure she didn’t catch it.”
It was the boost the Dukes needed. Conklin retired the first two batters in the eighth — popup to Sawyer, popup to the circle. She walked Abbey Ledford. But Sawyer nailed her with a throw to Lewis when Ledford tried to steal on a one-ball fastball.
Callie McConnell, who reached on an error leading off the Wellington eighth, scored the winner with two outs when Christy King also reached on an error.
“It was amazing,” said McConnell, a woman of few words. “I thought, just keep going.”
Sawyer said Conklin pitched as well as she has all season.
“Her curveball and screwball were really working,” the senior said. “This was one of her best games. It’s hard to say which was the best, but this was definitely one of them.”
Conklin finished with a six-strikeout three-hitter. She was also the only player on either team with two hits, a double and her season-saving triple.
The Dukes will carry a 23-4 record into Saturday’s 12:30 p.m. state championship date with top-ranked Hebron Lakewood.
Contact Bob Daniels at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. 

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