Staff photo / Preston Byers Austintown Fitch’s Abby Toth reacts while running the bases after hitting a home run during the Falcons’ home win vs. Canfield on Monday.

AUSTINTOWN — In a battle of the reigning Division I and II state champions, Austintown Fitch endured an early barrage of home runs and erased deficits of six and nine runs to beat undefeated conference rival Canfield 20-15 at home on Monday.

In the fifth inning, after surrendering eight runs and falling behind 14-5, the Falcons responded with 10 runs of their own in the bottom of the inning. Despite the Cardinals briefly tying the game up at 15 apiece, Fitch closed the game out with five more runs in the bottom of the sixth and holding Canfield scoreless in the seventh.

“We kind of thought that this would be this style of game,” Fitch coach Steve Ward said. “They’re excellent hitters. They’re very disciplined at the plate. Coach [Michael] Kernan does an amazing job, and we know what we bring. We know the firepower we bring, and the fact that these girls show character and grit throughout, being down six-nothing against a state-level team and just working back and working back and working back… it just shows their character. I’m unbelievably proud of them.”

Fitch starting pitcher Tori Greathouse immediately ran into trouble Monday, as each of the first two batters the freshman faced — Jenna Triveri and Sydney Lutz — hit a home run.

In the second inning, Alexis Johnson became the third Cardinal to hit a home run, with her two-run homer giving Canfied a 4-0 lead.

Marina Koenig then joined the club in the third inning, driving Lutz and herself home with a shot over the left-field fence.

The Falcons, whose passive plate approaches drew the ire of Ward early during Monday’s game, began to find their offensive groove in the bottom of the third inning.

After Kaliana Ray reached base on a bunt, the Cardinals infield committed an error that allowed Ray to score. Abby Toth then hit the first of her two home runs, driving in two more runs and giving the Fitch offense the spark it needed.

The next inning, following a scoreless inning pitched by Greathouse, Ray drove in two runs on a bases-loaded single to pull the Falcons within one and prompt Kernan to replace starter Caylee Ortiz with Camryn Hrina in the circle.

“They’re high level players. That’s just flat out. They’re high level players,” Ward said of his team. “They expect a lot from themselves. They expect a lot from their teammates. They expect their teammates to go out there and do the right things, and they’re gonna go out there and do the right things, and when it doesn’t go our way, we’re gonna adjust. And it’s awesome to see the chemistry and how they work.”

The comeback seemed as if it had been stamped out in the top of the fifth inning, however.

Despite a relatively clean fourth inning, Canfield began to tee off on Greathouse, who allowed four singles, three walks and four runs in the fifth before Ward replaced her with another freshman, Kourtney Fedorek.

The Cardinals ensured Fedorek would be unable to get out of the no-outs, based-loaded situation unscathed. The freshman reliever could only watch as Lutz smacked a ball just over the right-field fence for her second home run of the game. The homer gave Canfield, which scored on after a fielder’s choice before Lutz’s at-bat, a 14-5 lead.

“My main thing I tell them is that we have your back. We got you. We always have you. We have you all the time, and that you just need to trust your defense,” Toth said of her advice to the young pitchers. “That’s one thing about a team, you need trust. So I tell that to both of our pitchers and then everyone else.”

Fitch issued as strong of a response as seemingly possible in the bottom of the fifth.

After letting up eight runs, the Falcons scored 10 of their own by capitalizing the Cardinals’ errors, smart baserunning and timely hits.

Shortly after an infield error with two outs, a mistake Canfield would soon greatly regret, the Falcons scored its first run of the inning on a bunt by Rachel Spalding. While effective — Canfield committed an error, allowing Spalding to reach base safely and a run to score — the bunt was seemingly a result of a misread sign, as Ward made it clear to his dugout he did not call for a bunt.

Still, Fitch made the most of the happy mistake.

Ray then singled to drive in a run, the Falcons scored on another error and Toth hit an RBI single to score two more runs before Kylie Folkwein sent a pitch over the left-field fence for a three-run home run.

Two batters later and after Ortiz returned to relieve Hrina, freshman Bella Baumgart doubled to center field to drive in the game-tying run. Fellow freshman Seneca Coates then singled to left field, bringing home Baumgart and giving the Falcons the lead for the first time Monday.

After a long time waiting their turn, the Cardinals managed to tie the game up in the top of the sixth on a Sofia Castronova single to center field.

Unfortunately for Canfield, the Fitch offense was not ready to stop just yet.

In the bottom of the sixth, Ray hit a leadoff single and eventually scored on a Morgan Roby single. And then Toth stepped back up the plate.

The hard-hitting first baseman delivered for her team once again; on the fourth pitch of the at-bat Toth hit her second home run of the game to give the Falcons a three-run lead.

“Those were my pitches that I wanted to crank,” Toth said of her two home runs. “So I was literally up to bat right before that, I was getting ready to swing, and I said, ‘You can either crank that Soulja Boy, or it can crank you.’ And obviously, it helps me with that. It made me just stay loose and made me have fun.”

The Falcons soon increased their scoring total to 20, with Sam Severn and Coates each recording RBI hits.

The Cardinals offense proved unable to respond in the top of the seventh as Fedorek and the Fitch defense closed out the comeback win with the final three outs.

“I think the game played out pretty much from our end as well as I thought, other than giving away so many unearned runs,” Canfield’s Kernan said. “We knew they were going to get the bat on the ball. We had to make plays. We put the pressure on them by going up a few times early, and they took the air out of us by the end.”

Kernan said he hoped his team would learn some valuable lessons from Monday’s loss, Canfield’s first of the season.

“I told them, your true character is defined by facing adversity,” Kernan said. “We haven’t faced this, so what’s our character? Define your character under these circumstances. You just got to get tougher, stronger and get better from that.”

The Cardinals are set to host Fitch in a rematch today in Canfield.