INDIANAPOLIS – Malone and Ohio Dominican racked up Great Midwest Athletic Conference Softball Players of the Week honors in the final week of the regular season.
Eight teams from the league are now heading to Akron, Ohio, this week for the Great Midwest Championship that will be conducted at Firestone Stadium starting on Thursday.
The fight for the regular-season title went down to the final day as Ohio Dominican finished with the highest win percentage in the league with a 21-5 league record.
Trevecca Nazarene goes into the playoffs as the No. 2 seed and first-year league member Tiffin easily made the postseason field with the No. 3 seed. Defending conference champion Hillsdale is the No. 8 seed as the Chargers, No. 6 Malone and No. 7 Findlay all finished in a three-way tie with a 13-11 league mark.
Preseason conference favorite Cedarville has been the No. 1 seed the past two years and this year, the Yellow Jackets are the fourth seed. With conference title winning experience, Kentucky Wesleyan is No. 5 in this year’s bracket.
Findlay secured its playoff destiny on Sunday by winning two contests and edge out Ursuline as the Arrows laid it all on the line against Ohio Valley trying to get in.
Player of the Week
Bailey Byers
Malone
Infield/Catcher
Sophomore
Alliance, OH (West Branch HS)
Already one of three players from the Great Midwest named Louisville Slugger/NFCA National Player of the Week, Byers earned her second conference player of the week nod with more power numbers.
The sophomore backstop helped lift Malone into the conference tournament as the No. 6 seed as the Pioneers held the tiebreak advantage over Findlay and Hillsdale by virtue of a win vs. top seed Ohio Dominican.
Byers mashed six extra-base hits in the final week of the regular season and batted .522 (12-23) going into the postseason.
In six games, she was behind the dish defensively for all and recorded four multi-hit performances.
She smoked her 12th and 13th home runs of the season, still maintaining the second-place pace behind only Mary Collins of Trevecca Nazarene. Byers had a 4-for-4 line against Walsh but doubled three times in the previous two games.
Byers homered and doubled twice against Ohio Dominican in just one game, a big reason why the Pioneers grabbed the sixth seed.
Pitcher of the Week
Cameron Barber
Ohio Dominican
RHP
Junior
Powell, OH (Columbus St. Francis DeSales HS)
Barber pitched nearly flawless as Ohio Dominican secured the conference regular-season title and the top seed in this year’s conference playoffs.
Barber dipped into double-digit strikeout totals not once, but twice as she made three starts and won all of them in 22 total innings pitched.
Barber struck out 30 hitters and did not issue any walks.
The junior mowed down 11 Malone hitters in an eight-inning win. She allowed just one run on six hits. Later in the week, she recorded nine strikeouts for another complete-game win over Ursuline.
In Sunday’s contest vs. Lake Erie, Barber finished her stellar week with a complete-game shutout. She quieted the Storm with 10 punchouts and yielded seven hits to lower her ERA for the week at 0.64.