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HAMILTON — Emily Schwaeble hit her spots — and one shot — Monday afternoon at Hamilton High.

Colerain's junior pitcher blasted a solo home run to lead off the second inning and then escaped a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the seventh to lift the Cardinals to a 1-0 victory and the Greater Miami Conference championship.

"Emily made some great pitches and obviously her home run has huge, so she was definitely on today," Colerain coach Janet Huneke said.

The victory snapped a two-game losing skid for the Cardinals (16-4, 15-2 GMC) and clinched their second consecutive outright league championship.

Hamilton (18-6 overall, 14-4 GMC) could have earned at least a share of the GMC title after trailing Colerain by three games with three to go, but Big Blue couldn't come through with any key hits against Schwaeble (16-3), stranding runners in scoring position in the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh innings.

"I loved our effort, we just couldn't get the big hit when we needed it," Hamilton coach Steve Heckman said. "But (HHS pitcher Ashley Boyd) came back after the home run and threw great, and we made some great plays defensively. As a coach, I can't ask for anymore than what I saw today."

Boyd struck out eight and allowed just four hits, and she and Katie Fuller each went 2-for-3 to lead the Big Blue offense.

Boyd's second hit of the game was a line drive single to center that started the bottom of the seventh. Tara Bastin followed with a bunt single, and Kate Stidham sacrificed the runners to second and third.

But Schwaeble fanned Jennifer Rogers for her eighth strikeout of the game and the second out of the inning, and then Huneke spent about a millisecond debating whether to intentionally walk Rachel LeMaster.

"We had to because she's a quality player, and I know she would have taken advantage of that situation," Huneke said.

"There's a little part of me that wanted to face her right then," Schwaeble added. "But I knew that's what we had to do."

The walk loaded the bases for Rachel Cox, who, after taking two unhittable pitches on the inside corner at the knees, hit a ball into the gap in right-center that Colerain center fielder Megan LaFary chased down for the game's final out.

"She just got under it a little bit," Heckman said of Cox. "If that ball falls in, we win the game easy."

As disappointing as the loss was, Heckman said he knows his team will have no trouble regrouping for the tournament, which begins Wednesday at Mason against Sycamore.

"We've got a lot of sad girls right now, but we just played the No. 1 team pretty tough," he said. "They'll bounce back. They'll be ready."

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2193 or jmorrison@coxohio.com.

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