Eagles blank Cloverdale for second straight win
All it took was Jessica Briones throwing a no-hitter and the rest of the South Putnam High School softball team connecting at the plate for one inning for the Eagles to win their second game of the season.
The Eagles wrapped up their series with Cloverdale Wednesday with a 7-0 win on their home field.
"I'm real pleased how this game turned out," SPHS Coach Allen Rains said. "It was 9-2 Tuesday and for our first game, defensively we were sound and (Wednesday) we went up and down the batting order with everyone getting a hit."
Briones posted nine strikeouts in Wednesday's game and only walked two batters.
"Briones had two good strong games for us and she will be doing the majority of the pitching in the conference games and she was all over the plate (Wednesday) too," Rains said.
The Eagles got on the board in the third inning when Meghan Canary singled, scoring Megan Robinson. The Eagles added six more runs in the bottom of the fourth, starting when Bailey Birt got on base thanks to a Clover error. Briones and Morgan Wiggs loaded the bases with their singles, setting up the Eagles for the score.
Sam Stanifer and Robinson both sacrificed for two runs batted in followed by Hanna Ames, who doubled, scoring Wiggs for a 4-0 lead. South Putnam continued to hit the ball with Oceija Boetjer scoring the last two RBI with a triple to left field.
"If you're a fortunate to get a coupe of runs in an inning sometimes the rest snowball in," Rains said.
Wednesday's loss was the second one for the Clovers and Head Coach Greg Crum knew what the cause of the loss was.
"We didn't hit the ball well and we didn't field the bunt very well either," he said. "When we didn't field the bunt, that put a couple of runners on the bags and that allowed a few runs to get scored.
"We're a young team we just need to practice harder and get better and its going to take us a few games to learn how to play with a sense of urgency," Crum said.
The Eagles cranked out 11 hits with Ames leading the way with three hits and one RBI while Robinson and Meghan Canary had two hits and one RBI each while Briones had just two hits. Boetjer had the big hit of the night with her triple in the fourth that scored two RBI and Wiggs finished the night with one hit.
Briones earned the win for the Eagles while Nicole Mowery took the loss.
Mowery fanned three batters and gave up 11 hits and seven runs in which all were earned.
South Putnam (2-0, 2-0 in West Central Conference) and Cloverdale (0-2, 0-2 WCC) are both back in action on Monday. The Eagles host Cascade at 4:30 p.m. and the Clovers host Monrovia at 5 p.m.
At South Putnam
Cloverdale 000 000 0 -- 0 0 2
S. Putnam 001 600 X -- 7 11 3
P -- Briones (SP), Mowery (CL)
C -- Megan Canary (SP), Monnett (CL)
WP -- Briones (SP) 2-0
LP -- Mowery (CL) 0-2
2B -- Ames (SP)
3B -- Boejter (SP)
Next Game -- South Putnam (2-0, 2-0 in West Central Conference) and Cloverdale (0-2, 0-2 WCC) are both back in action on Monday. The Eagles host Cascade at 4:30 p.m. and the Clovers host Monrovia at 5 p.m.