Bud Light wins

Holds Anderson's scoreless in six of seven innings

Friday, July 3, 2009

Bud Light improved to 13-1 on the season in the Women's League, while Anderson's Bar fell to 9-6.

"Our batting is on a down slump," Bud Light coach Louis Stewart said. "The last three games, our batting has been poor. Our defense has been strong … which has been holding us in some games."

Bud Light jumped out to an early lead with an aggressive first inning offense. After Sandy Abell, Khourtini Hester, and Amanda Hedum led the inning off with singles to take a 2-0 lead, Denise Butler came to the plate and knocked a triple into center field to push the lead to 3-0.

It was the first of three extra-base hits on the night for Butler, who also had two doubles. She later scored on an April Podilinsky sacrifice fly to give Bud Light a 4-0 lead after the first inning.

"Denise always gives us a good game," Stewart said. "She always gives us 100 percent."

With runners on first and third with one out in the bottom half of the first, Anderson's Bar had an opportunity to match Bud Light's first inning offensive production. But two batters later, the inning was over and Anderson's Bar had scored only one run on a sacrifice fly, cutting the Bud Light lead to 4-1.

It was the only run Anderson's Bar scored on a night when its offense seemed off balance all evening. Anderson's Bar managed only four base runners the rest of the game.

"This is a Division I team," Anderson's Bar coach Jamie Tennyson said. "They've only lost one game all year. They have a lot of veteran players on their team. I've got a very young squad that I'm trying to pull together."

After hitting a scoring drought of its own in the second and third innings, Bud Light padded its lead with one run each in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings on a run scoring single by Jamie Ryce, a run-scoring triple by Hester and a run scoring groundout by Tonya Smith to finish the game with seven runs.

Despite hitting a recent slump, Bud Light was still able to gut out a win, much to the delight of its coach.

"We have good starts," Stewart said. "Our first inning is usually our best inning to get runs and usually we get runs at five or six runs at a time. Our defense backs it up and then we try to add to that."

While Bud Light trails undefeated Just Us by a game in the Division 1 standings, Anderson's Bar is still in control in Division 2, a fact of which Tennyson is most proud, considering the youth and inexperience he has on his team.

"Right now we are leading the Division 2 teams and that, I thought, we would not do at the beginning of the season," Tennyson said. "Where we are at right now, yes I'm very pleased."

kpourmand@somdnews.com