Worth County's softball girls showed some improvement this week after getting knocked out of all three of their games last week. Pitted against former Tigers Grace and Quinci Schottel and the King City Wildkats, they roughed up Grace for one of the few times in her life and chased her from the mound in the third inning. Then, after losing their composure and falling behind in the sixth, they came back and got to within one run before falling 8-7. Unfortunately, it didn't get any easier for them Wednesday as they had to turn around and travel to Polo, who beat Gallatin 6-1 and ended their 15-game winning streak.
Grace Schottel was pounding the outside corner and getting called third strikes for King City, but Worth County got Jacklyn Brooks back; the Tiger slugger played like she hadn't skipped a beat, pounding a single over the shortstop's head to set up Worth County's first run. Finally, Sidney Troutwine took one on the elbow for the team and forced in a run to make it 1-0.
Worth County continued to hit Schottel hard in the third, getting a double down the left field line for two runs from Alysa Lyle and a single that brought in another run from Brooks. That inning was started when Kaitlyn Davidson hit a weak roller to second, groaned, "Oh, shoot, I shouldn't have swung at that!" and beat it out for an infield hit. Kaitlyn, who was touted for her hitting by coach Dave Gilland, helped the Tigers out with her glove at third base as she robbed King City of two sure hits.
King City began rallying back; Payton Adwell scored on a wild pitch, but King City chipped away at Worth County's lead until the sixth inning when they executed a perfect contact play, where they got down a bunt in fair territory, the runner on third was off at the crack of the bat, and she scored easily to tie it up at 5. Worth County then lost their composure, forgot to cover second and third, and threw the ball around as King City went ahead 6-5. King City scored two more runs in the top of the seventh, but Rachel Gardner made a leaping catch in the rain to take away extra bases and keep it at 8-5.
That sparked the team, as Kaitlyn Davidson and Gardner both came home on wild pitches. But one of Worth County's runners wandered too far off third and was picked off for the final out. The Tigers are showing improvement even though their record doesn't show it and they are finally getting healthy; however, they are a very young team going up against teams that are loaded. Tuesday night's loss was a prime example of what happens in these situations.
No comments:
Post a Comment