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Staff photo / Brian Yauger
Howland sophomore Maya Kubancsek runs toward third base during Thursday’s sectional final matchup against Wooster in Howland.

HOWLAND — Sometimes you don’t play your best game. In a do-or-die tournament setting, survive and advance is every team’s M.O.

Howland, who has been searching for consistency as a group all season, didn’t put up their best effort on Thursday, but lives to fight another day after taking down Wooster, 4-2, in a Division III, sectional final matchup.

“Obviously we’re happy that we got the ‘W,’ but I think that they came in and took this game a little too lightly,” Tigers coach Nicole Wayt said. “We noticed it in warm-ups. We thought we looked a little messy and we told them all the time that we’re going to play how we practice and carry it right into the game.”

That showed itself early with a pair of Tiger errors which led to two runs from Wooster in the top of the second, quickly erasing Howland’s 2-0 lead after the first.

A pitching swap that put Brooke Tatar in the circle played to the Tigers’ advantage, but it mostly came from the defense tightening up.

“They’re just different kinds of pitchers,” Wayt said of Tatar and starting pitcher Maya Kubancsek. “Their balls go different places. We don’t have just a strikeout pitcher. We tell them all the time, the pitcher’s job is to pitch the ball and the defense’s job is to field it. The pitchers can’t go out there worried about trying to strike out everybody. They have to go out there knowing that their defense is behind them, and I am glad they did seem to settle in after the first inning. Maya had a great day in the field. She made, I think, all three outs in one inning.”

Kubancsek played a large role in the batter’s box as well. The sophomore bunted Madison Schmitz home in the third to give Howland the lead, then extended it further with a full-count solo shot to put the Tigers up 4-2 in the bottom of the fifth.

Tatar had a two-RBI double in the top of the first to give Howland an early edge.

The win sets Howland up in the district semifinals, where they’ll play host to Medina Highland or Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy. The result of the Highland-CVCA game was not posted to the OHSAA site.

Howland also has some remaining regular season games left. Today, they take on Lakeview, who will be a tough test for the Tigers.

“They’re well-rounded everywhere,” Wayt said. “At the plate, on the mound, in the field. We’ve played them the last couple of years. They’re obviously a local team to us. They have a lot of travel ball players, they’re well-coached, so it should be a good game.”

With those tough games ahead, Wayt hopes her team plays the way she knows it can.

“We’ve been talking about it all year that they have to (be consistent),” she said. “We played some really big games and had some great wins. We came out and we beat Canfield in a great win. We tell them that you have to find a way to bottle that and play like that every game. You can’t pick and choose which games you’re going to bring that energy, you have to bring it every game.”