Hornets fall to Chargers

LaBille’s pinch hit RBI single is the difference in SMAC softball encounter

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by GARY SMITH Great Mills’ Tori Bradburn smacks a double off Lackey’s Shelby Windsor in Friday’s game, a 2-1 Hornets loss. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

Then, with the score tied at 1 in the bottom half of the sixth inning, LaBille was called upon from head coach Dawn Cowger to pinch hit, after Alexis Cowger hit a double to lead off the inning. LaBille was no longer cheering, but being cheered after she sent a rolling grounder into center field that allowed Cowger to score from second base, giving Lackey the 2-1 lead. It would prove to be the game-winning hit.

‘‘That hit made me feel really good,” LaBille said. ‘‘After I hit it, I thought, ‘Oh no, I am going to be out.’ Then I saw it roll through, and I thought, ‘Yes!’ The win today makes me look forward to the whole season now. I am really excited about it. We have a good team, and we just have to apply ourselves.”

In the top half of the seventh, there was still one more game-saving play to be made, that by Lackey third baseman Kim Leatherman. After Great Mills’ Brihanna Stewart led off the inning with a triple, Lackey pitcher Shelby Windsor picked up her 13th strikeout of the game.

Next, Lizzie Schuman sent a ground ball to third base. Leatherman was able to field the ball and proceeded to throw the ball home, as Cowger applied the tag for the second out.

‘‘I was nervous there at third base,” Leatherman said. ‘‘I was thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I got the grounder,’ and she got a good jump, and then I went to thinking, ‘Don’t overthrow her, don’t overthrow her.’ It made me feel good, knowing that they were not going to score.”

On the play, Coach Cowger added: ‘‘The catcher was yelling, ‘Four, four, four.’ They read the runner and saw that she was going, and she was not going to stop; she was going because they needed that run.”

Joselynn Stewart singled to put the tying run on second with two outs, but Ashley Davenport grounded out to end the game.

Great Mills (5-3, 0-1 SMAC) was able to get its lone run in the top half of the sixth, thanks to a wild pitch that allowed Joselynn Stewart to score from third base. Stewart led off the inning with a double, and advanced to third after a sacrifice bunt from Davenport. The run would tie the game at 1.

‘‘I think we played really well today,” Joselynn Stewart said. ‘‘It’s just the mental errors and attitude that brought us down. We started to hit in the end, but if we would have hit like that in the beginning it could have been a lot better.”

‘‘It was a good game,” Great Mills head coach O’Jay Lewis said, ‘‘but we didn’t hit very well through the first four, five innings. We made some costly mental errors, and [Lackey] capitalized on them. That is what good, decent teams do. They capitalized on the mistakes, and it got them a nice win.”

Lackey (2-2, 2-1) received a strong pitching performance from Windsor as she struck out 13 batters in a complete-game victory, and had at least one strikeout in every inning. After walking two batters in the opening inning, Windsor did not allow any more walks.

‘‘Shelby did really for me,” Cowger said. ‘‘It took her a while to get warmed up, but she was able to get back in the groove and got it going.”