GHS softball wins on road
A Putnam County showdown took place on the softball diamonds Tuesday and Greencastle jumped to a lead after an effective second inning and held onto the lead, winning 7-1 at South Putnam.
Greencastle has its first win since the county tournament, after falling to Cascade 11-2. Julia Mundy was the pitcher for GHS Monday and GHS coach Tabitha Briones is optimistic about her pitching duo as the Tiger Cubs continue their stretch of four straight road games.
"Last night at Cascade I had Julia pitching and she did a great job," Briones said. "I'm just very fortunate to have two pitchers that do so well. So Skyler was on tonight that's beneficial to us. But we were also hitting. That's something we've been trying to focus on."
The Tiger Cubs got the bats rolling early against the Eagles. Once Brynne Shuee got on base she was brought home by Grace Paul. In the second inning, Hensley earned a single, followed by Ivy Wright both managed to score. Then GHS earned two runs off of Kenlee Johnson's double which scored Mundy and Shuee later in the inning.
"Defensively we tend to make the typical one or two errors," Briones said. "So skill-wise we are there, it's just getting the bats going. The girls work at it six days a week. Eventually it's going to pay off. You have to learn what the pitchers are doing and how to react to different pitchers. So that's another skill we are working on."
The Eagles' score came from Myers who was hit for the second time in the third inning. She advanced on an errors when Lillie Stein came up to bat and managed to get all the way home on overthrows.
SPHS' lack on runs wasn't due to lack swinging. The Eagles had 11 fly outs in the game and GHS solid in the field for most of the night.
"This last three or four games that's been our thing," Eagle coach Drew Steffy said. "We haven't been able to get key hits when we've got runners on. We've got runners in just about every inning. We just haven't gotten a key hit to fall. When we hit the ball it's going right at somebody."
South Putnam is another team with few rest days for its players. The Eagles will play four straight games after the county tourney but will then benefit from four days of much needed rest.
"From where we started to where we are now we've improved 100 percent," Steffy said. "From ability to hit the ball, to pitching to fielding I can't fault the girls at all. But more importantly our view of softball has been awesome."
Steffy said his girls are outstanding at controlling their attitude and effort on the softball fields.
"We've battled a lot of illness," Steffy said. "Not making excuses but we've haven't had our regular lineup in the last three or four ball games. We've had some ill ness and injuries but to the girls' credit they followed our philosophy of playing on demand. All of girls are playing positions that they haven't had to play at all this year."
In the fifth inning ¬Kenzie Horton, who was running for Hensley made it home for after Kaylee Evans nailed a single for the Greencastle RBI. GHS then managed to get the bases loaded and a walk scored Evans for the final run.
The two will go head-to-head again Wednesday for a rematch at Greencastle. GHS will hope to keep the big batting numbers and the Eagles (4-5-1) will be looking to see the kind of hits that were prevalent at the beginning of the season.
"The key with this team is whenever we've been able to put quite a few runs on the board we've been pretty successful," Steffy said. "We've scored double digit runs in almost all our wins and the tie, in the losses we score three or less."
Greencastle however claims the WIC division game, its first after a West Vigo loss.
"That's something that I try not to put on the girls through," Briones said. "I think that if they just play their game the wins will come."
At SOuth Putnam
Greencastle 140 020 0 -- 1
S. Putnam 001 000 0 -- 1
WP: Hesley