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Mathews’ Eggens fans 17, shuts out G. Valley
VIENNA
Backed by another ho-hum 17 strikeout performance from Cheyenne Eggens, Mathews High softball continued its winning ways Wednesday evening.
The senior pitcher gave up just three hits and allowed only one Grand Valley High baserunner past second base in a complete game shutout, 8-0.
Grand Valley used an aggressive approach at the plate to try and get the dominant pitcher off her game early. While it took Eggens 39 pitches to get through the first three innings, she cruised to the finish line needing a meager 79 pitches to earn her 12th win of the season.
“I’m pretty used to girls just going up there swinging to try and get contact or get the timing down,” Eggens said. “I try to stay with what I’m comfortable with that day, but you have to venture out and play to the batter.”
Eggens, who’s committed to the University of South Florida, now has 73 wins at Mathews and increased her career strikeout total to 1,162.
“I’m trying to really enjoy this season,” she said. “This is the last year of playing with all of my friends. It’s weird. It just came so fast.”
The game was scoreless until the home half of the third when Mathews catcher Jenna Siefert drove in Paula Sponsler with an RBI single. Two batters later, Karli Romesberg singled, scoring Maddison Williams and Siefert to give Mathews a 3-0 lead.
Eggens singled and scored for the only run of the fourth inning. It was until the sixth that Mathews (12-3, 7-1 Northeastern Athletic Conference) broke the game open thanks to a few fielding miscues by Grand Valley.
“When you have such a dominant pitcher, you need to limit bases and limit opportunities,” Grand Valley coach Kim Triskett said.
“The kids just need to make sure that they understand the play’s not over until the umpire says the play’s over and they stay in the play all the way through.”
After retiring the leadoff batter, Nicole Watts walked, Sponsler reached on a throwing error by the pitcher — which scored Watts and allowed Sponsler to advance to third — and Lenna Hoff tripled home Sponsler on a ball misplayed by the left fielder.
Morgan Williams had a pinch-hit RBI single to round out the scoring.
“We’re still trying to work on some things,” Mathews coach Jim Nicula said. “We’ve been able to get some subs in and work with our starters, so that was real big to get that part of the game involved.”
The defense behind Eggens didn’t get too much work on Wednesday. She struck out eight of the final nine batters she faced and had only seven balls hit in play, including the three hits.
Nicula joked that the hardest part of his job when Eggens is on the mound is “keeping everybody alert and ready to go, because the faster it comes in, the faster it can go out.”
“Sometimes we do get a little bit on our heels, just because she does get so many strikeouts,” Nicula said. “So we always just want them to stay on edge, keep them on their toes and not get a little bit sleepy out there.”