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Greene, a sophomore, did not allow an earned run in 12 innings of work and smashed a key home run in the finals that helped the Lady Devils claim their second County title in three years. After chalking up a 15-0 mercy win over Sandusky in the semis, Brown City (19-1 through Saturday) stopped Deckerville, 10-1, in the championship contest.

"(Winning County) was a pretty important thing for us," remarked Erin Snyder, BC coach. "It was one of our goals this year, especially since we didn't win it last year."

Greene, who had four hits in the two games, has been steady on the mound all season, but her offensive game has kicked into high gear in the last week or two.

"She's just finally getting warmed up," mentioned Snyder. "She's seeing the ball really well right now and staying focused."

The championship game started out as a pitching dual between Greene and Deckerville's Jessie Guza, just like a contest in GTC East play the week before (won by BC). The game was scoreless until the bottom of the third. With two outs and the bases loaded on a single, error and a walk, the Lady Eagles' drove in a run with an infield single off the bat of Tiffany Smith.

The Lady Devils, though, retaliated quickly in the top of the fourth. Sandi Oligney led off with a walk and Mary Miller reached base on a sacrifice bunt. One out later, Greene crushed a home run over the left field fence. After another Deckerville error, Amanda Oligney topped off the four-run inning with an RBI double.

That was all Greene needed as she shutout the Lady Eagles the rest of the way. She gave up just four hits, all singles, and struck out 11 batters.

A single by Michelle Burgess and a double by Greene led to two more runs in the sixth, BC collected five hits, pushing across four more runs. Miller, Burgess and Jamie Clark each had RBI singles.

Coach Christi Pavlovics of Deckerville said that her team needed to respond after BC's four-run fourth.

"We just didn't string anything together. We left a lot of people on base," Pavlovics cited. "We know that (Brown City) is going to hit and they're going to score. But, if we only score one run, we're going to lose. We left eight runners on."

Coach Snyder said her team played well all day.

"It was one of our best games all season, (in the win) against Sandusky," she noted. "It was the first game we put together hitting and fielding. We played two tough teams. I'm happy to walk away with two wins."

Semifinals

Brown City 15 Sandusky 0
BC led just 2-0 going into the fourth inning of the first semifinal, but then pushed across 13 runs.
Emily Kalbfleisch had three hits in the contest, including a double, and drove in three runs for the Lady Devils. Clark added a triple and two RBI and Greene and Burgess both had a pair of singles.

Deckerville 10 CPS 8
The Lady Eagles had to fight off a solid effort by the Tigers in the second semifinal game.
Ashley Foster had one of the big hits in the game for Deckerville with a triple, finishing with three RBI. RaChelle Rich had a double that drove in a run, Tiffany Smith and Michelle Apsey both had a pair of singles and an RBI, and Tricia Nichol brought in a run with a base hit. Guza was the winning pitcher.
For CPS, Nichole Storm led the hitting with a triple and a single. Dawn Albrecht also had a triple for the Lady Tigers.