WHEELING — St. Clairsville sophomore pitcher Jenna Jaskowiak was lights out in the circle and a pair of seniors had her back at the plate.

Three-year letterwinner Taylor Gallentine tripled to lead off the sixth and classmate Bree Bennington bunted her home for the go-ahead run and St. Clairsville defeated top seeded Oak Glen 2-0 to claim the OVAC 4A championship on Monday at Lisa’s Field at the I-470 Complex.

It’s the fourth OVAC title for the St. C. softball program and its second in the last four years.

“This is the best game we’ve played all year,” St. Clairsville coach Rob Gallentine said. “We talked about a couple things coming into this one. Number 1, we have to reduce the walks and get that first strike. Jenna did a spectacular job in the circle and had no walks.

“We were facing a really good pitcher and hats off to (Madison McKay). She did really well. We tried to prepare for her all week and she was still very effective against us. We only had two hits.”

Jaskowiak lit up the strike zone all game, punching out nine hitters and walking none.

She struck out the side in the first and fanned at-least two in three different innings.

“Jenna had a nice drop ball and a changeup that were working,” Coach Gallentine said. “She has been working extremely hard, not just this week but through the offseason.

“All that work pays off and she deserves it.”

McKay was just as dominate for the Golden Bears.

She struck out 13 and walked two, including punching out the side in the third and leaving two runners stranded in scoring position.

“Maddie McKay does an excellent job,” Oak Glen coach Sherrie Garner said. “She is able to pitch hard and play hard. It was a matter of putting runs through. They had that inning against us that we couldn’t fix.

“(Taylor Gallentine) is a left-hander and she was on it at the right time and made it happen but it was an excellent game.”

St. Clairsville only collected two hits, both coming off the bat of Taylor Gallentine.

In the midst of the pitcher’s dual, Taylor Gallentine launched a deep fly ball to center and raced around the bags for a triple to start the sixth.

After a walk to Hannah Thoburn, Bennington dropped down a squeeze bunt and Gallentine slid in safely to home to give the Red Devils the lead.

Jaskowiak added insurance with a RBI groundout on another squeeze bunt.

“We worked on our small game,” Coach Gallentine said. “We laid down two key suicide squeeze bunts and if it wasn’t for that, I don’t know what would have happened. We came through in clutch situations.”

Oak Glen did not go quietly in the bottom of the seventh as Hannah Walker singled and Alexa Andrews doubled but a diving catch on a pop-up by St. C. catcher Dakotah Namack and a grounder to third ended the threat and the game.

“I’m very proud of our girls,” Garner said. “They tried to make some things happen at the end and that’s why you play seven innings, because anything can happen.

“There is a lot of maturity on our team with four seniors and a field of juniors. We have some freshmen on the field and they blend very well together.

“Congrats to (St. Clairsville). They played an excellent game. They have an excellent pitcher, as well. She was able to move the ball and hit her spots. She kept us guessing.”

NOTE

All three championship winning teams in Monday’s OVAC finals — Steubenville (5A), St. Clairsville (4A) and Crestview (3A) did not commit a single error.

“We talked about minimizing errors,” Coach Gallentine said. “I said that ‘if we get our errors down to one or none, we have a shot’ and the girls did a really nice job.”