Garaway falls 2-1 to Claymont in 11-inning softball battle

Garaway had the kind of outing that usually wins in late April and early May: True Tango reached base four times, Annabelle King piled up strikeouts, and the Pirates pushed Claymont into extra innings before a 2-1 loss finally ended it.

Claymont needed 11 innings to slip past Garaway in Inter-Valley Conference softball play May 4, a game that showed how little room there is for error when conference opponents refuse to give away an inning. Tango led the offense with a triple, two singles and a walk, while Kayla Miller added two singles, Keaton Yoder chipped in a double and a single, and Krista Miller drove in Garaway’s run with a single.

King took the loss, but her line was strong enough to keep Garaway in position to win for most of the afternoon. She struck out 11 over 10.1 innings and allowed just two earned runs on nine hits, the kind of performance that usually carries a team through a tight conference game. Instead, Claymont found the one timely swing it needed and left Garaway with an 18-5 record.

The defeat snapped Garaway’s four-game winning streak, but it also fit the larger pattern of the Pirates’ season: a team good enough to handle big nights, yet still living on the edge in one-run games. Garaway had been 14-2 as of April 22, and the Pirates’ 2025 state tournament run has raised the standard around Sugarcreek and throughout Holmes County. Last June, Garaway reached the OHSAA Division VI state championship game for the first time in program history before falling 6-0 to New Madison Tri-Village at Firestone Stadium in Akron.

The response came quickly. Garaway beat Claymont 5-4 at home on May 6 to split the two-game set, a reminder that the Pirates still have the kind of lineup and pitching depth to turn a close loss into a fast rebound. Their official schedule also showed the team playing River View twice on May 2 before the Claymont games, adding to a demanding late-April and early-May stretch.

For Garaway, the numbers now point to a team with a high ceiling and a narrow margin. The Pirates can win big, they can grind through extra innings, and they can put pressure on a conference opponent from start to finish. What they still have to sharpen before the postseason is the last inning, the last pitch, and the last at-bat.