Staff photo / Brian Yauger Badger freshman Isabella Bailey crosses home plate after scoring in the bottom of the second during Monday’s victory over Lordstown. Bailey had five RBIs in the win.

VERNON — After trailing by a run before getting their first at-bat, the Badger Braves were out to change things quickly.

That deficit evaporated as quickly as it was established, and the Braves kept applying the pressure, taking down Lordstown 11-1, in a Division IV, first-round sectional contest on Monday.

“Like I tell them all the time, ‘We have to settle down and settle in.’ A lot of times you do give up that one run the first time,” Badger coach Greg O’Brien said. “It’s their lead-off hitters, and it’s not easy to get them out all the time, so we just have to put that behind us and keep working, that’s all we did. We didn’t worry about it.”

The Braves were led by senior Brianna Huscroft and freshman Isabella Bailey, each with three hits. Bailey recorded five RBIs in Monday’s game, with Huscroft knocking in three runners.

The freshman-senior dynamic is the story of the Braves season, with the roster consisting of five seniors, 11 freshmen and a single sophomore.

“We’ve got five seniors which helps for leadership, and we got 11 freshmen so it’s kind of a young team, but we’ve got a lot of kids that work hard and have been learning all year,” O’Brien said. “That’s helping us here at the end (to achieve our goal of) getting better each game.

“(Having the seniors around has been) very important. It’s a big difference. You’ve got 14-year-olds playing against 18-year-olds, so having those five seniors to show them what to do and kind of look up to makes a big difference.”

It’s been an up-and-down season so far as Badger sits just above .500 at 9-8.

They’ve beaten the teams they should have, and lost to some of the league’s powerhouses like Mathews and Chalker.

“We’ve had some strong performances and then we’ve had some let downs where we didn’t play as well as we should,” O’Brien said. “We did a lot better tonight showing up and doing things we’re good at and what we’re supposed to do.”

The Red Devils end their season at 1-12, with the team’s lone victory coming in a 21-11 victory over Bloomfield.

“It’s been a rough season,” Lordstown coach Kim Strimple said. “There were games that we came out and we played really hard and then it felt like and a lot of the games that we played, there was just one inning where things just fell apart, and when they fell apart, they really fell apart. That’s how it goes sometimes.”

With just two seniors, the Red Devils look to go into 2025 with more consistency

“We’ve got to work, we have to,” Strimple said. “We have to practice over the summer and not wait until February when we start things up again, and we have to continue to try to get better during our downtime.”

Badger takes to the road on Wednesday when they face East Palestine in a sectional bracket final matchup. The winner will go on to face off in the district tournament at Jackson-Milton.

Wednesday’s game at East Palestine is set for 5 p.m.

Have an interesting story? Contact Brian Yauger by email at byauger@tribtoday.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @_brianyauger.