Emily Mendenhall needed to be sharp on Wednesday.
A hard-hitting Forsyth squad had seen the Clever ace three times already during the season.
Unfortunately for the Lady Panthers, it wasn't enough.
Behind Mendenhall's dominant one-hit shutout and a stellar defensive effort, Clever downed Forsyth 6-0 to win the Class 1, District 8 championship.
With both teams very familiar with one another, Clever head coach Cheryl Grant was prepared for a shootout.
"That was a nerve-wracking thing going into this," Grant said. "Knowing how many times they'd seen her, and they always hit well. You see a pitcher that many times, you're going to hit the ball. They did, but we were very effective on defense."
When she had command of her arsenal, Mendenhall was particularly effective hitting her spots with both rise- and drop-ball deliveries. When she wasn't, there was no telling where the ball would end up. With the Forsyth hitters already off-balance, the junior hurler was just wild enough to throw additional fuel on the fire.
Catcher Allison Nolan was equally effective, both calling Mendenhall's pitches and providing an exceptional safety net with her mitt. Mendenhall tallied six strikeouts and four walks on the afternoon.
"The rise ball was working really well," Mendenhall said. "[Nolan] was picking that up really well. She was calling everything perfect tonight. The rise ball was working, and the drop ball would work … I think it kind of threw them off with everything moving like that."
The Lady Jays showed they can hit, too.
Taylor Farmer's first-inning single up the middle scored Nolan from second for a 1-0 advantage.
The score remained unchanged for three innings, and it looked like the game was setting up to be a tooth-and-nail pitchers' duel.
In the bottom of the fourth, Clever decided otherwise.
After the first three Lady Jay hitters reached base safely, the floodgates opened.
Abi Menzies, Ashton Graaf, Emily Valence, Lacy Menzie and Nolan all notched an RBI in the inning to give Clever a comfortable 6-0 cushion.
Grant was pleased with her team's ability to chain together multiple hits in the inning to push runners around the bases.
"That's one of the things we've done in the past," Grant said. "We'll have hits, but we're not hitting them at the right time, you know. We're leaving too many on base. I felt like we did a really good job, especially in that inning having girls on base, and then capitalizing and bringing them home."
Forsyth threatened in the sixth with a pair of base-runners; however, the rally fell short on a ground ball to Mendenhall for the final out. Forsyth head coach Tommie Anderson lamented his team's uncharacteristic plate discipline against a formidable opponent.
"I didn't like our approach at the plate," Anderson said. "We kind of got away from the things that had made us successful against [Mendenhall] in the past. I felt like we lengthened our swings and were trying to hit the ball too far instead of just being short to the ball and using the whole field. We picked a bad game to do things that we normally don't do. We've seen her ten times now in her high school career, so we should have had a better approach than we did."
Clever moves on to the May 9 sectional round and will face 18-2 Plato. Should the Lady Jays advance, a possible grudge match looms in the quarterfinals. Last year's Clever squad fell short in the quarters 2-1 against eventual runner-up West County.
Mendenhall and company are certainly hoping for an opportunity to run that one back.
Clever – 6, Forsyth – 0
Forsyth 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
Clever 1 0 0 5 0 0 x — 6
