Northeast Nodaway cleaned up the sloppy play from its first game and hit the ball better in a 10-1 victory over South Nodaway, its first win over the Longhorns in a few years. They already have matched their win total from last year, getting their second in three games. "We'll get there," promised coach Danny Smith after the game. He said the big difference in the first game was that Northeast hit three line drives right to the shortstop, Keagan O'Riley and hit three more right to their first baseman. But in the South Nodaway game, the balls finally started finding the gaps.
Danny Smith's Bluejays began chipping away at the Longhorns in the first as their catcher threw away a ball trying to retire Dallis Coffelt stealing on a first and third play. That seemed to catch her own team by surprise as Alicia Smith came home on the play to put Northeast up 1-0. As in South Nodaway's first game, pitcher Elizabeth Turpin kept the Longhorns in the game with her pitching. But Northeast got through again in the third as Jill Spire's pop fly single to right scored Taylor Coffelt. South Nodaway was stymied by only being able to use eight players at the plate and getting an automatic out every time the 9th spot came up. The Longhorns loaded the bases with one out in the second with a chance for a big inning, but had to take the automatic out; NEN pitcher Dallis Coffelt froze Sydney Harlin for the third out of the inning.
Northeast continued to pull away in the fourth and fifth. Vanessa Riley grounded out to score Allie Runde in the fourth to raise Northeast's lead to 3-0. Once again, South Nodaway started to fade in the later innings. Taylor Coffelt was given new life when South Nodaway first baseman Haley Nielson dropped a routine foul ball; she reached on an error when the third baseman bobbled a grounder and took out the bag as she was safe stealing second. Alicia Smith reached on another error to score Coffelt and was out later in the inning trying for third base and getting thrown out, but Jill Spire homered to the wall in right field to put Northeast up 5-0.
Spire scraped her knee sliding home on the play and had to come out, forcing Taylor Coffelt to come in and catch. Coffelt has caught before, but had never caught Dallis in a game. Dallis and Taylor fight tooth and nail as siblings, even doing so during games; however, it doesn't affect their ability to work together as teammates. Northeast got into a jam in the inning as South Nodaway loaded the bases and broke the shutout as Sydney Murphy grounded out to score Sydney Harlan to break the shutout and cut Northeast's lead to 5-1.
But Northeast recovered in the sixth as Allie Runde led off the inning with a home run right down the right field line that dropped in just fair and rolled into the corner. Alicia Smith's pop fly single to right scored Makayla Adwell and Maggie Schmitz. With Spire out with a scraped knee, Coach Danny Smith put in Kaylee Colvin, who had never played softball before this year; she had moved to Northeast from St. Joseph Benton, where she had played volleyball. But Colvin showed herself to be a quick learner. In preseason practice, Smith had to soft-toss her the ball so she could put it in play, but by Saturday afternoon, she had progressed to the point where she could hit live pitching. On her first hit, she nearly took out Alicia Smith at first as she whistled one foul past the bag; on her second try, she nearly took out Smith again as her single moved Alicia to third. After hesitating a few times, Colvin finally worked up the courage to take off to second on a first and third situation and made it; Dallis whistled a single past third just inside the bag to score Colvin and Smith.
With the game in hand, Maggie Schmitz came on to pitch in the sixth. She walked the first batter she faced, but settled down and struck out Devanna Ostrander and Erin Salisbury to get out of the inning.
No comments:
Post a Comment