RANKINGS
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ABOUT
Last month, we profiled the Keystone High softball program from LaGrange, Ohio which entered the 2021 season just nine wins away from hitting a record-setting mark: 1,000 wins in school history, making it the first to hit the four-digit number in Buckeye State history.
On Monday, the Wildcats accomplished the feat in impressive fashion, beating Oberlin High 16-0 thanks to a nine-run outburst in the bottom of the 4th inning which led to the game being run-rule shortened after five innings.
“We always talk about ways to leave your mark on the program, because there are so many marks that have been left,” Keystone head coach Jim Piazza told Rob DiFranco of the Morning Journal based in Lorain, Ohio.
“This solidifies something for them and justifies all of the hard work they put in. So I’m proud for our program and proud for our community and school.”
Starting pitcher Lily Cassell got nine straight outs to start the game and exited in the 4th after the game was secured. Senior Jessica Chapman, headed to Lourdes University batted at the top of the order for the Wildcats and went 4-for-4 to spark the potent offense.
The march to the 1,000-win milestone began in 1978 when Suzanne Leffew coached the Northern Ohio school in its transition from slow pitch to fastpitch. The Wildcats went 5-6 that first year and “was well into her second season when she was benched,” according to Shaun Bennett of the Chronicle-Telegram in Elyria, Ohio.
“I was very pregnant and nobody had said anything about me being on the field and co. aching third, then midway through the season an umpire came up to me and said, ‘Ma’am, you cannot be on the field,’” she said. “So I looked at Dave (her husband) and he said, ‘OK,’ and he went out on the field to coach third the rest of the game.”
“And I never left,” Dave Leffew said with a laugh
Jim Piazza was the JV coach for four years under Leffew
The legacy of great players hasn’t hurt, either, as many All-State players were coached and developed by the Leffews and ultimately Coach Piazza.
Adds Bennett:
“Sydney Campbell, another two-time All-Ohio first-teamer and 2019 Miss Softball, said girls are ‘born into’ Keystone softball and that was certainly true for several coaches’ daughters — Brooke Piazza was Campbell’s teammate on the squad that won the Division II state championship in 2018 and Amie (Leffew) O’Brien, the 1999 Miss Softball winner, was in the pitcher’s circle her senior year when the Wildcats brought home the school’s first state title.”
“It’s just a big softball family,” Pizza said in the Chronicle-Telegram article this week. “You saw all those little kids during the state championship parade in 2018, and they were making their signs that said, ‘We’re future state champs.’”
Piazza continued the winning ways started by the Leffews, although Bennett’s article details how they had some coaching differences in styles as well.
“He was a student of mine and when he graduated he was the basketball coach at Lake Ridge Academy and he asked me to come watch him coach,” Dave Leffew said. “I was impressed with the way he handled his kids, they were very disciplined. When my JV job came open I asked him if he’d be interested and he goes, ‘In softball?’ I said, ‘You know how to discipline and you know how to coach, the rest is going to be easy. You’re going to have pitching, I know that.’”
Leffew said Piazza’s JV teams lost just one game in his four years on the job. While his offensive approach was providing a huge boost, Piazza also brought a strict almost-military-like approach to off-the-field preparation.
“Jim made us run and I didn’t like that,” O’Brien said with a laugh. “My dad had a very specific conditioning program and when Jim came on he definitely upped that significantly. It’s intense.”
While every one of the 1,000 wins counts for one mark in the record book and many have special meaning for hundreds of Wildcats players, the four state championship victories stand alone atop the list.
“I will never forget anything about that game, honestly,” Campbell told the Chronicle-Telegram of the 2018 final that capped a 34-0 season and landed Keystone at No. 4 in the final national standings. “It’s just a game that will stay with me for the rest of my life and I’m very thankful that it can count as one of those thousand wins.”
Today, Piazza is proud of the legacy he and the Leffews primarily have built.
While Keystone has had just five coaches during its 42-year and nearly 1,000-win run — Sue Kimbrough coached the 2000 season and Larry Shaw ran the program in 2001-02 — the first coach summed up the Wildcats’ legacy perfectly.
“Finding those two (Dave Leffew and Jim Piazza) was the perfect storm,” Suzanne Leffew told Shawn Bennett.
“Dave finished with 428 wins in 20 seasons and Piazza has 490 through 18. Both are members of the Ohio Coaches Hall of Fame and both have been key to the Wildcats’ consistent run of success.”
“(Reaching a milestone,) you get to kind of reflect back and remember some great plays, the state championships and the state final four games,” Piazza said. “Obviously the biggest moment, and it’s kind of selfish as a dad, was the hit that Brooke had in the state championship game. I do remember Kristie Malinkey’s perfect game — her and I both didn’t realize she had a perfect game, that’s how focused we were on getting the job done because we were there three times before that and we fell short.
Keystone will try to make it 1,001 program wins with a game against Clearview High later today before playing in the traditionally strong Wendy’s Spring Classic in Ashland, Ohio this weekend.
*****
Here’s a look at the varsity program’s all-time win-loss record:
Keystone High Softball Record
Source: Shaun Bennett / The Chronicle-Telegram
Year Record Coach
1978 5-6 Suzanne Leffew
1979 6-8 Suzanne Leffew (11-14)
1980 11-4 Dave Leffew
1981 11-5 Dave Leffew
1982 11-5 Dave Leffew
1983 10-4 Dave Leffew
1984 16-3 Dave Leffew
1985 21-4 Dave Leffew
1986 28-1 Dave Leffew
1987 22-5 Dave Leffew
1988 22-4 Dave Leffew
1989 20-1 Dave Leffew
1990 19-5 Dave Leffew
1991 27-4 Dave Leffew
1992 27-4 Dave Leffew
1993 26-4 Dave Leffew
1994 26-3 Dave Leffew
1995 25-4 Dave Leffew
1996 23-5 Dave Leffew
1997 22-9 Dave Leffew
1998 28-5 Dave Leffew
1999 33-0* Dave Leffew (428-79)
2000 24-1 Sue Scarbrough (24-1)
2001 23-6 Larry Shaw
2002 24-5 Larry Shaw (47-11)
2003 29-2 Jim Piazza
2004 31-3 Jim Piazza
2005 27-5 Jim Piazza
2006 32-2* Jim Piazza
2007 23-7 Jim Piazza
2008 27-5 Jim Piazza
2009 28-4 Jim Piazza
2010 24-5 Jim Piazza
2011 32-2 Jim Piazza
2012 32-0* Jim Piazza
2013 25-4 Jim Piazza
2014 27-4 Jim Piazza
2015 26-6 Jim Piazza
2016 28-5 Jim Piazza
2017 26-5 Jim Piazza
2018 34-0* Jim Piazza
2019 29-1 Jim Piazza
2020 Season canceled due to pandemic
2021 9-0 Jim Piazza (490-60)
Totals 1,000-165
* — won state championship
*****
High School Spotlight: Four-Time Ohio State Champion Keystone will win its 1,000th game in 2021 and is Dedicating the Season to the COVID-Impacted Seniors of 2020
Originally published March 27, 2021 on Extra Inning Softball
Keystone High out of LaGrange, Ohio is one of the most storied high school programs in the country.
The Wildcats have made an amazing 18-state appearances in the Final Four of the Ohio softball prep playoffs with four state titles (1999, 2006, 2012 and 2018) with the 2012 squad being tabbed as National Champions.
But it’s been almost two years since Keystone last played a game and today is the start of the 2021 season for the Buckeye State team which has a doubleheader today against Amherst and Glen Oak.
After the 2020 season was lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Head Coach Jim Piazza is excited to take the field once again as this year team will hit a big milestone.
“We are nine wins away from being the first team in Ohio to win 1,000 games and and we hope to make it to our sixth straight State Finals.”
There’s also a key group of players this Wildcat team is playing for.
“We dedicated this season to last year’s seniors,” says Coach Piazza. “It was the hardest thing I had to do as a coach was to tell our players their season was canceled after all the hard work they put in the offseason. The seniors took the biggest hit because they waited their turn to be leaders and were doing a great job.”
On this day 2020 spring sports got shutdown. We are committed to dedicate this season to our 7 seniors who lost their opportunity to finish their career. Thank you for your leadership! @emmer29 @marliemcnultyy @allissa_7 @abowen1177 @nessa_regal @maddiehetsler @AngelMinisall pic.twitter.com/z5Acp4W5pW
— Keystone Softball (@KHSCatSoftball) March 13, 2021
The 2021 team is, as usual, loaded with talent.
“We have a solid team this year,” Piazza believes. “We have seniors Madi Herrington (signed with Oakland University), Kerrigan Williams (signed with Hampton University) Jessica Chapman (signed with and juniors Lily Cassell (verbal to Northern Illinois University) and Kennedy Kerr (being recruited by Div. 1 schools).”
Two years ago, the Wildcats were led by pitcher Sydney Campbell, who was named as an Extra Inning Softball 1st Team All-American for the second season in a row after she won an amazing stretch of 63 games and finished 25-1 with a 0.33. Sydney pitched in the Ohio Final Four all four years of her varsity career and is now at Oakland University.
It’s time for a new crop of players to step up and continue the impressive legacy of Keystone High, especially a nearly two-year hiatus away from the game.
Coach Piazzi concludes simply, “We’re just extremely excited to be playing again.”
Here’s a hype video the softball team produced which kicks off saying it all: “We’ve waited long enough… this is our time.”