Staff photo / Neel Madhavan The South Range softball team celebrates in the infield after winning the Division V northeast regional championship on Friday in Alliance.

ALLIANCE — South Range’s school colors are burgundy and gold. Yet, throughout the season, the Raiders have worn maize and blue hats, ribbons in their hair and face paint during games.

The unusual color combination is in tribute to beloved former Raiders athletic director and assistant softball coach Don Feren, who was a passionate fan of the Michigan Wolverines.

Feren passed away in February at the age of 54 after a battle with cancer, but his memory has continued to live on amongst the Raiders, who are headed back to the state final four in Akron for the fifth time in the last 10 years.

With Feren in the back of their minds, South Range dismantled Creston Norwayne 9-1 on Friday to capture the Division V northeast regional championship in Alliance.

“Every day I think of him, every day. I have a picture of him in my office, and the funny thing is, it’s a picture of me, him and (assistant coach Melissa) Starkey holding the last regional championship trophy, and here we are, holding up another one without him,” South Range head coach Jeff DeRose said. “But in spirit, he’s here. There’s times I wonder if he has an impact on what’s going on, but I know he loved this program.

“When he came down with cancer, it was a very emotional time when he announced it to the team. … We have the “DF” on our helmets, we have “DF” painted at third base on our home field, so he’s thought about every day. And it’s not just going to be this year, we’re going to think about him every day until we’re one day gone.”

Most years, the Raiders are used to being in this position, competing for regional titles and a spot in the state final four. But last year, South Range bowed out of the tournament in the regional final, coming up short of a third consecutive berth in Akron.

With a large, experienced senior class, the Raiders set their sights on getting back to this point at the start of the spring. But South Range began the season 6-6 against a daunting slate.

“From day one, we were ready to go to state. We were all thinking it,” senior Anna Aey said. “It was super frustrating coming up short last year. But we all put in a lot of hard work, and we purposely make our schedule hard.”

After a loss to Canfield on April 17, the Raiders hit the reset button on their season, and since then, they’ve won 17 of their last 18 games.

“We were talking about making it a ‘new season’ a lot, especially down in Myrtle [Beach] when we tried to flip that switch,” Aey said. “[DeRose] was telling us, no more losses from here, and I think we all just got tired of losing.”

Against Norwayne, South Range’s bats were hot right from the start. The Bobcats opened the game with their only run when Makenna Heyden’s RBI scored Slippery Rock University commit Abby Workman after a lead-off double.

But from there, the Raiders went to work. In the bottom of the first, Solena DeJesus reached on a Norwayne throwing error, which allowed Sophia Brogan to score the team’s first run.

Then in the bottom of the second, the Raiders broke the game open, scoring four runs off three Bobcats errors.

“If they make errors and get out of it without a run scoring, then that’s obviously a win for them,” DeRose said. “But to capitalize on their mistakes, they just put their heads down and that’s exactly what happened. Their heads got down, they got a little bit discouraged, and it’s not like they gave up. But you could just tell that the air was almost let out of their sails. We never let off the pedal, and here we are.”

Workman and South Range freshman Cameryn Crepage worked through a couple quick innings, before the Raiders tacked on another run on an RBI sacrifice fly by Ashley Rupert in the bottom of the fifth.

Crepage continued her breakout freshman campaign by striking out 10 and scattering three hits with one walk.

“She’s got the drive,” DeRose said of Crepage. “I try to tell her she’s too nice, but she’s got softball drive. She’s got a demeanor about her on the mound. … She’s so engaged in what’s going on in front of her. To have that as a young lady like her, I love it. You can’t teach that stuff.”

Despite a 6-1 lead, South Range wasn’t done. In the bottom of the sixth, Gabby Spooner had an RBI sacrifice fly after two lead-off hits, and then Aey put the exclamation point on the Raiders’ victory with a two-run home run to right field off Workman for her only hit of the afternoon.

“Everyone was saying that she was throwing a little bit inside more, which is what I prefer,” Aey said. “Then she threw me one, and I knew she was throwing me another one. I wasn’t going to miss it, especially for how bad I did at the beginning of the game. I couldn’t miss another ball that was mine.”

As Aey made her way around the bases, she thought of Feren, who in the past would have been the third-base coach to high-five her as she made her way to home plate.

“He definitely still lives in all of our heads,” Aey said. “We all wear bows, and then I have my bands in, and we listen to a song for him before all of our games. But definitely miss him, especially when I’m rounding that third-base corner, when he’s usually there. He always pushed us to be better, and he always wanted us to be better. When we took the day off to mourn his loss, we all knew that he would’ve been so mad that we did that.”

South Range now advances to the Division V state semifinals at Firestone Stadium in Akron, where it will take on the winner of Johnstown and Baltimore Liberty Union on June 6 at 12:30 p.m.