Worth County Black Wins Under 11 Third Place

Worth County’s under 11 softball teams both stumbled to good teams with fast pitchers in the league tournament at Ravenwood. Both Albany and Platte Valley clearly established themselves as the teams to beat in the tournament. But the Worth County teams were both good enough that they were able to handle everyone else and made it into the third place game. Put them into one unit, and they will be tough to challenge with their depth in future years. 

The Worth County Black team and the Worth County Gold team met for the third place game Thursday night. It was expected to be a close game, but the Black team batted first and they were able to take advantage of it by jumping on the Gold team in the first inning. Addie Cadle walked and went to second on a wild pitch. Kyah Joslin hit a hard grounder to Gabbey Maudlin, who made a great play at short to get her out at first as Cadle took third. Gwynn Healy hit a grounder to third, and they tried to nail Cadle coming into score, but the ball got away and Healy made it all the way to second. Renae Gladstone then turned on a changeup and crushed a triple into right field past everyone to score Healy. Aria Oberhauser grounded out to score Gladstone, and Samantha Picken beat out an infield hit to score Kinley Fletchall to make it 4-0.

The Gold team fought back from an impossible deficit to beat one of the Maryville teams during the regular season, but Daden Findley’s screamer down the right field line that looked like extra bases was snared by Samantha Picken at first for the first out. A pair of hit batters later in the inning cut the Black lead in half, but then pitcher Kinley Fletchall shut the door with a pair of strikeouts to get out of the inning.

Ridley Ware discovered her own strength when she hit a screamer down the left field line that landed just fair to start the Black second. After standing around in shock, she took first with a single. Cree Blankenship and Addie Cadle walked. The Gold squad nearly got out of the inning when pitcher Kaitlyn Moyer snagged Kya Joslin’s screamer for the second out, but Gwynn Healy beat out a strong throw from shortstop Gabbey Maudlin; a tie goes to the runner, and Kadence Downing crossed the plate to make it 5-2.

After Kinley Fletchall and Aria Oberhauser opened up the Black third with base hits, the Black squad broke open the game with five runs to put the game away.