Highland’s softball team will look back on the 2017 season with pride eventually. Eventually, though, got a lot longer.

Defensive letdowns, including three huge ones in the final two innings, allowed Wadsworth to escape May 16 with an 8-7 eight-inning victory over the Hornets a Barberton Division I District final at the Barbeton Sports Complex.

“We had a team loss,” said Highland freshman Autumn Chorba, who drove in four runs for the Hornets. “It’s tough but it’s a team game. It’s not just one of them that did it. It’s everybody.”

Second-seeded Wadsworth (18-3) advanced to take on top-seeded Walsh Jesuit, a 9-0 winner over No. 4 Medina in the other semifinal. Highland, which had a pair of regular-season games left, dropped to 18-6.

Wadsworth tied the game with two seventh-inning runs, both of which scored on an outfield error. The Grizzlies won the game with two more runs plated the exact same way in the eighth after the Hornets had taken a 7-6 lead in the top of the inning.

In each case, the misplayed ball would have been the final out of the game, making the loss extra excruciating.

Highland – which made seven errors altogether, accounting for six unearned runs – also made an infield error in the eighth that eventually prolonged the inning.

“Against a team like that you can’t give them that many mistakes,” Highland coach Patrick Martin said. “You can’t really give them any mistakes, but especially as many as we just gave them.

“I give them credit. They were down early. They kept battling, they stayed in it and they had that confidence and took advantage of our mistakes.”

Things looked great for the Hornets through the top of the fifth, when the scored four times to take a 6-0 lead. Ironically, the Grizzlies were just as self-destructive in staking Highland to its big advantage.

Though Wadsworth only allowed one unearned run, had the Grizzlies executed a couple fairly routine plays, Highland might not have scored at all.

The defensive letdowns made a hard-luck loser of senior Brittany Fleischer (15-5), who was dominant through four innings. At that point the right-hander had allowed three hits and struck out six.

Over the final four innings, though, Wadsworth got to Fleischer for seven hits – none of which came in the decisive eighth inning – and Highland exacerbated that with errors.

Highland took a 2-0 lead in the third on Chorba’s two-out, two-run single. A Wadsworth error accounted for both runs.

The Hornets erupted for four more runs in the fifth inning, again with some help. Alex Chorba and Alex Pasco hit one-out doubles before Hanna Griffin singled Pasco to third, then stole second.

Autumn Chorba followed with a fly out to right, with Pasco scoring. Had the throw been accurate, Pasco would have been out by plenty. Instead the inning was extended and Highland took advantage when Fleischer and Morgan Belsole connected for RBI singles.

Wadsworth came right back, scoring three times in the bottom of the inning on three hits and one Highland error. Wadsworth had a runner on third with one out but didn’t get her home.

Another Hornet error, this in the infield, allowed Wadsworth to turn a pair of singles into another run to get within 6-4.

In the seventh, Fleischer allowed a pair of hits, one that didn’t leave the infield, to start the inning. She got the next two patters on a ground out and a strikeout, only to have a liner by Jenna Skinner go in and out of a Highland glove.

The Hornets came back with a run on Sam Kainec’s RBI single and had two runners on with one out but couldn’t get an insurance run.

The Grizzlies then got a one-out single – following a spectacular diving catch in center field by Alex Chorba – a ground-out and a two-out hit to bring up Corynn Rench, whose liner to left field was misplayed, allowing both Wadsworth runners to score and sending the Grizzlies to the district championship game.

“You’re thinking about it a little too much,” Martin said of possibly why his team struggled so much on otherwise routine things. “You know the stakes are a little bit higher. It’s one of those things. One mistake turns into two and at tournament time that’s going to cost you.”