South - Dixie Fast Pitch Recap
J. C. Tilton
As with the boys games we had get the coverage in early this week. The Panthers and Greyhounds matched up on Monday. Dixie had one handicap in that their first pitcher, Autumn Powell, broke her thumb the previous week and is not expected back until sometime in May. Freshman backup Angela Leach was tapped to take the mound. While sophomore Maggie McCollum would pitch for the Panthers.
Leach seemed to hit her stride early as the Panthers were 3 and out for the first two innings. Bertke opened the second inning with a walk and would later score the first run of the game for Dixie. The Panthers seemed to figure out Leach in the 3rd inning when they got a 2 out rally going. Two runs were scored before the Greyhounds ended the inning. However, Dixie answered with a big inning of their own. Nill got on base first, stole second and was batted in. The next two runs happened back to back. Sarah Kirby and Abbey Witt reached base and were on second and third. Kirby dove to home plate on a wild pitch. The ball rolled back onto the infield and an alert Abbey Witt dug hard for home plate and scored on the same wild pitch.
From there Leach seemed to dig in and the Panthers were not able to score again. Dixie put the game away with a big 5th inning, scoring 8 runs for a 12-2 win. For the Panthers Kali Duchemin had a double and an RBI. Kim Deleranko, Cailee Bryant, and Maggie McCollum all had hits.
Coach Money was upbeat after the win, “We talked last Thursday about changing negative to positive energy, I spoke to Leach about visualizing what she had to do. And now things are starting to happen. The defense is making plays, and Leach is 2-0 since the injury to Autumn.” Dixie had a solid 6-3 win over league foe Northridge. “Even though we were outhit by Northridge, we got some clutch hits that scored runs for us. The players are being aggressive, they are getting strawberries and scrapes from getting in the dirt.”
Coach Robinson stated that, “We just never did adjust to their pitcher. we had too many errors, and too many walks by our pitcher. It was very frustrating to stay with them for 4 innings, then watch the wheels fall off the cart in the 5th inning.” South next played Franklin Monroe. Again the offense had problems making contact. Kali Duchemin did manage a triple; Kim Deleranko and Brook Burns managed singles, but the Panthers would only score one run in a 9-1 loss. Coach Robinson said “We played much better defensively, only having one error, but we struggled to hit or produce any runs.” Comments: email: Chris Tilton
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