Staff photo / Preston Byers The Canfield 10U softball team poses with its banner after winning the Little League 10U state championship vs. Wheelersburg on Friday at the Fields of Dreams in Boardman. The team consisted of Kendall Kyle, Layla Potkanowicz, Genevieve Dragish, Brooklyn Eubanks, Gia Grover, Juliana Walters, Keagen Carroll, Kenley Rogers, Gray Brown, Emery Weinman, Oliva Scacchetti, Rilyn Baun, manager John Grover and assistant coaches Jeff Scacchetti and Jen Walters.

BOARDMAN — After faltering in its first chance to win the Little League 10U softball state title Friday at the Fields of Dreams in Boardman, Canfield took the 30-minute break to recover and immediately began to rout Wheelersburg in the decider.

Canfield, which could not keep pace with the Pirates in the first game of the day, had no such issues in the final meeting, as the Cardinals won 11-2 to capture the state championship and secure a berth to the regional tournament.

“They’re a well-coached program. We have a ton of respect for Wheelersburg,” Canfield coach John Grover said. “Really, the last few years, if you look at any side of the championship, whether it’s the Minors, whether it’s the Majors, you’re looking at Canfield and you’re looking at Wheelersburg. So we have an immense amount of respect for their program, and really the family of people that they bring. They work hard. They’re well coached. And it took every ounce of everything we had to get it done.”

It appeared as if Canfield, which had beaten Wheelersburg 11-1 in the semifinals earlier in the week, would pick up where it left off, considering the Cardinals took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning in the championship. But Wheelersburg, needing to force a second and deciding game, took the lead in the fourth by scoring four runs.

Although Canfield snatched back the advantage with four runs of its own in the home half, the Pirates stayed hot and drove in five more runs in the top of the fifth, and they extended their lead to 12-6 in the sixth inning before closing out the win.

Despite the setback, Grover was confident his team would rebound in the second game, which took place approximately 30 minutes after the conclusion of the first.

“Just continue to be themselves,” Grover said of his message in between games. “I knew we would break through. We had a couple of bounces that didn’t go our way [in the first game]. But with our hard work and our talent, I knew we would persevere like we always do.”

Unlike the sunny, sweltering opener, the deciding game began with dark clouds looming overhead, which proved ominous enough that Wheelersburg coach Dakota Luster asked state officials how a game suspension would affect his pitcher’s availability.

While the point eventually became moot, Canfield did not bother to wait long before putting runs on the board.

The Cardinals earned back-to-back hits to start the game, and shortly thereafter, scored the first run on a Brooklyn Eubanks ground ball. Gray Brown and Layla Potkanowicz also scored in the top of the first on a wild pitch and bases-loaded walk, respectively.

Wheelersburg responded with a pair of runs in the bottom half of the first inning, but Canfield extended its lead to four in the third, when Potkanowicz doubled to score Rilyn Baum and Eubanks, and Juliana Walters doubled to score Potkanowicz.

The Cardinals went ahead by eight in the fifth inning, during which Gia Grover scored on a groundout, Brown raced home on a wild pitch and both Eubanks and Potkanowicz scored on a Walters single past the second baseman. Genevieve Dragish drove in Canfield’s 11th and final run in the sixth inning.

Brown dominated from the circle throughout most of the second game Friday. After pitching four innings in the opener and surrendering a pair of runs in the first inning of the decider, she allowed just three hits the rest of the way while striking out eight batters.

“We knew it wouldn’t be easy, but we have an amazing set of parents that really have raised their kids right,” John Grover said. “I can’t speak highly enough about that, because even though you’re a coach, a lot of what happens is how they come to you. These girls come respectful, they come prepared. And the moment they walk into the door, whether it’s a practice or whether it’s a championship, they know that they are going to fight and give it all they got. And that’s what made us victorious.

“We lost in the district championship last year. So about 375 days ago, we were defeated, very sad, but we hung that runner-up banner in our batting barn, and we looked at it all year, knowing that we did not want that feeling. … And now we’re district and state champions, and I could not be more proud of those girls.”