Staff photo / Brian Yauger. Mathews’ Olivia Matheny delivers a pitch against Gibsonburg.

BEREA — The young Mathews squad saw its season come to a close on Friday, falling 5-2 in the Division IV, Berea Region finale to Gibsonburg.

They made it one step further than last season, when their season came to a halt in the regional semifinals.

“I can’t say enough about this group of kids,” Mustangs coach Jim Nicula said. “Extremely young, their first year with Ken (Wallace), my first year back after taking a year off, and Gianna being our only kid that we had (before). We knew what we had and knew what we were up against, and especially in the circle, trying to rebuild that in that. I just can’t say enough about these kids. They embraced what we wanted them to do, played their behinds off the entire year and especially this last run from the last week in April to now, they’ve really just been lights out.”

Mathews fell behind early after a two-run Gibsonburg home run in the top of the third, but pushed back in the bottom of the inning.

Sophomore pitcher Olivia Matheny knocked home two runners to tie the game back up.

Unfortunately for Mathews, that’d be the last time someone in a Mustang uniform crossed home plate.

The Bears responded in the top of the fourth with another pair of runs. Leah Jividen, who hit the home run in the prior inning, sent another shot to left field and over the fence, the other came off a passed ball.

The Mustangs were unable to respond, but had a chance in the bottom of the sixth with runners in scoring position.

Mathews put together a stellar run to the regional final. After an 11-2 loss to Pymatuning Valley at the end of April, the Mustangs buckled down, putting together 11 games with at least 10 runs, a 21-run effort over Ashtabula Lakeside, and a 14-3 record in that timeframe.

Two of those three losses came in tune-up games against Ursuline and Berea-Midpark.

Mathews graduates one senior, Gianna Toto. Toto was the only player left from Nicula’s previous Mustang teams and provided an incredibly valuable leadership aspect to the team.

“She learned from all the leaders before her and all the sports and activities she did at Mathews,” Nicula said. “She’s got great parents. They’ve raised a tremendous daughter, she’s going to have great success. She absolutely set the tone for this team this year by being not only the senior, but the team mom and the voice of reason. She calmed them down when she needed to and kept them in line when they needed to be kept in line.”

The Mustangs’ season ends at 22-8.

With such a young team, the expectation is to take another step forward and make it back to this game and win. It’s not going to be easy, but Nicula wants his girls to rise to the challenge.

“They have to put work in to get better at the things that they need to get better at,” Nicula said. “There’s a tremendous amount of talent there, as you see. We hit the ball, we can play defense, some of the catches and plays out here were just tremendous by sophomores and freshmen. Gianna (Toto) made a hell of a play on that line drive that she snared that would have been big, Mia Delgarbino takes three runs out of their hat by snatching one off the ground, but we just need to get better at the things they need to get better at and become even better at the things they’re good at.

“If they do that, then it’s an open book for them with what they want to accomplish. State is definitely on the menu if they want it.”

byauger@tribtoday.com