Home runs power Indians past Highland

By ROB HAMILTON

Not even the rain could stop Mount Gilead from putting on a power-hitting dis­play when they hosted High­land in soft­ball Wednesday.

In their 6–3 win, the Indi­ans scored all their runs on a quar­ter of homers; the most impor­tant being a three-run blast by Cay­lor Arnold in the sixth inning that gave Mount Gilead insurance.

Not only did that shot improve their lead from 3–2 to a 6–2 mar­gin, it also allowed them to hold on to their advan­tage after the Scots scored in the top of the seventh.

“Because of that sev­enth inning, those runs in the bot­tom of the sixth were huge,” said MG head coach Joe Ruhl. “She (Arnold) is one of the best play­ers I’ve ever seen. I’d take her at the plate in that sit­u­a­tion anytime.”

Mount Gilead’s first three bat­ters in the bot­tom of the sixth all reached base to load them up with nobody out. High­land coach Tressa Ragor then replaced start­ing pitcher Shayla Pierce with Cassie Brown, who quickly induced a dou­ble play to put run­ners on sec­ond and third with two out.

The Scots would not be able to get out of the inning, as Arnold would then hit her sec­ond home run of the game to put her team up by four runs.

High­land attempted to fight back in the sev­enth, get­ting sin­gles by Car­rie Wright and Jessie Stew­art to open the frame. With one out, Katie John­son hit a sac­ri­fice fly to bring in a run, but the Scots would not be able to add to that total as Mount Gilead won the game.

“Our girls came back and tried to get some hits in the sev­enth inning,” said Ragor. “We came out today and were swing­ing, but noth­ing was falling through.”

Ragor added that while her team did a good job of get­ting on base, they strug­gled to string hits together to put runs across the plate.

While the Indi­ans might not have strung hits together for most of the game, the ones they did get tended to go a long way.

Makayla McAvoy put one out of the park to open the sec­ond inning, while Arnold hit her first of the con­test in the third. Both were solo home runs, so the Indi­ans were staked to a 2–0 lead.

McKenzi Rhodes responded with a home run in the top of the fourth. Then, in the fifth inning, with two outs and no one on, Stew­art, McKenzi Rhodes and John­son recorded three straight sin­gles, with Johnson’s dri­ving in Stew­art to tie the score.

How­ever, Indian pitcher Baylee Smith drove one out of the park in the bot­tom of the fifth to put the Indi­ans back on top by one run. They would then fol­low with their big sixth inning to put the game away.

While Ruhl’s team had already clinched the Blue Divi­sion cham­pi­onship, he noted that his play­ers have plenty of rea­sons to take their remain­ing reg­u­lar sea­son games seriously.

“We tell the kids that every win counts,” he said. “This was impor­tant because we have our seed­ing com­ing up and next week’s games are impor­tant to get ready for the tournament.”

High­land fin­ished with nine hits in the con­test, with Stew­art, Rhodes and John­son all hav­ing mul­ti­ple base knocks. Rhodes added a home run, while Ray­chel Shaf­fer added a dou­ble. Pierce and Brown com­bined to strike out four and walk one.

The Indi­ans fin­ished with only five hits, but they all went for extra bases. Arnold had two home runs, while McAvoy had a home run and dou­ble. Smith also drove a pitch out of the park, while win­ning the game with five strike­outs and one walk.

Posted by Rob Hamilton on May 2 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.