In a week of softball that can be summed up by one player - a college-signed pitcher for Cardinal Gibbons - the Broughton CAPS demonstrated how far their defensive play has come this season.
On Tuesday, the team faced off on their first game of the week against the Crusaders. The game was mostly marked by the fact that the Cardinal Gibbons managed to strike out 14 of Broughton's at-bats. But Broughton was able to keep them mostly in check the first three innings with some great defensive play by
Merritt Hicks, Demi Jones, Mikayla Cunningham, Allie Carmack, Elizabeth Rotchford and
Abby Lehr, who struck a batter or two as pitcher.
Fourth inning started with the CAPS down 2-0 and saw some uncharacteristic defensive mistakes that resulted in the bases getting loaded up. The Crusaders then had a batter hit a hard grounder that got away from the CAPS, and she suddenly brought in several runs on an inside the park home run. Fortunately,
Abby Lehr was able to strike out a batter, another line drive to
Lehr was thrown out at first and finally a grounder to third and a full split on the catch by first baseman,
Nina Oliva, got the third out. And, the inning was finally over with the CAPS down 8-0.
While Cardinal Gibbons was able to grab one more run in the fifth inning, that inning was definitely the Broughton show. With two outs and two players on base,
Allie Carmack gets up to the plate and hits a perfect shot down the first base line for the a double. Two batters later the amazing
Merritt Hicks gets up and hits her own inside the park home run, and the inning ends a few batters later with a score of 9-5. The last inning saw the CAPS make a last gasp effort to come from behind. But they fell just short, as the third out came with
Reagan Curtis just missing the steal at home. And, the final score was 9-7.
The second game was played at Cardinal Gibbons on a beautiful Friday afternoon. The game was marked by some strange ump calls that frustrated the CAPS as they tried to understand what was allowed and what wasn't. Also, the SIX pitcher changes that the Crusaders made throughout the game resulted in a very long game with lots of stopping and starting. But, in the end, the CAPS were just too much for them, and they took a big 18-6 win over Cardinal Gibbons.
The beginning of the second game seemed reminiscent of the first game. The Crusader's starting pitcher struck out 8 of our batters in the first three innings. On the other hand, Broughton had an uncharacteristically bad defensive inning in the very first inning, and we found ourselves down 5-0 going into the fourth inning.
But the Lady CAPS are a never-say-die kind of team, and the fourth inning brought a new Cardinal Gibbons pitcher and some great offensive action for the team. With
Reagan Curtis on first base,
Nina Oliva hit a hard grounder that was bobbled by the second baseman.
Oliva took the error to her full advantage and scored an in-the-park home run. Not to be outdone,
Allie Carmack got a nice hit into shallow center field for a single. But, by the time she was done, she had stolen second, third and home for the run. The Crusaders added another run in the inning to their tally, but not before
Merritt Hicks, fielded a ground ball and threw to
Nina Oliva for the out at first.
Oliva then threw to
Reagan Curtis at home for the double play! And, with that the inning ended 6-3.
The Crusaders would not score again for the rest of the game, due to solid play all around by the CAPS infield. But Broughton was just getting started on tallying up their runs. Great base running and stealing by the likes of
Elizabeth Rotchford, Reagan Curtis, Allie Carmack, Merritt Hicks and
Nina Oliva brought the team several runs. Couple that with some great hitting
Demi Jones (double to left field),
Elizabeth Rotchford (single to shallow right field AND another to deep center field for triple),
Reagan Curtis (deep center field shot for triple),
Joselyn Towe (grounder to shallow left for single)
Mikayla Cunningham (down first base line for double),
Nina Oliva (deep hit to center field for triple).
With the game in the WIN column, the CAPS look forward to taking on Sanderson this week.