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Champion tops West Branch in Strikeout Cancer game
BAZETTA
Freshman Abbi Grace’s one-out single in the top of the fifth inning got Champion rolling toward a 3-1 win over West Branch in the 11th annual Joanne Kernan Strikeout Cancer Memorial at Candlelite Knolls on Saturday.
The softball game was one of several played Saturday after Friday’s poor weather put the event’s schedule behind the 8-ball. Second-day games continue today.
The Champion-West Branch game was originally set for noon, but, due to muddy conditions, it didn’t start until another field became available at 1:30. Both teams immediately played a second game: Champion was 4-0 entering its follow-up game against Brunswick, while West Branch took a 5-3 record against Edison.
West Branch struck first for a 1-0 lead when Grace Heath’s sacrifice bunt was picked up by Champion’s third baseman, but thrown wildly to first to allow Bailey Byers to cross the plate in the bottom of the first inning. Byers doubled to start the inning.
Champion coach Cheryl Weaver said that Abbi Grace’s line-drive single to right field in the fifth inning was the catalyst for the Golden Flashes.
“She broke it open,” Weaver said of Grace, a freshman. “That makes it even more exciting and I think it really picked up the girls. I don’t think our intensity was there in the beginning — not like West Branch’s was. We pointed it out that they [West Branch] wanted it more and our girls responded. We got a hit at the right time to fire up the girls — and when a young’n does it first that really got them going. That changed everything.”
Grace’s line drive to right field snapped Kelsey Byers’ no-hitter and it set up Champion’s first run when Grace scored on Alayna Fell’s hard grounder that the third baseman couldn’t stop. With the score, 1-1, Fell then scored when another hard-hit grounder — this time by Gabby Hollenbaugh, went through the second baseman’s arms. Allison Smith had the second single of the inning, to shallow right field, that scored Hollenbaugh.
“Things were going a little slow because our energy was down but we gained it back,” Abbi Grace said.
Smith (2-0) was the winning pitcher.
“It’s always nice to have offense on your side because you can go back out [on the mound] and feel more comfortable, but my defense helped out a lot too,” she said.
Smith mentioned her team’s 1-0 deficit through the first four innings.
“I took it as more of a challenge because I knew they were good,” Smith said, “so we had to pick up our intensity to produce like we did.”
Smith gave up four hits and registered four strikeouts. Besides Bailey Byers and Grace Heath, West Branch’s other hits came off the bats of Maddie Pidgeon and Hannah Sprague.
Grace Heath may have seen Smith’s pitches better than most of her Warrior teammates, especially early.
“A lot of her first pitches were good to hit, but she’s a really good pitcher,” said Heath, whose only hit came in the third inning with two strikes when she singled over the shortstop’s head. Heath eventually reached third base, but her threat was short lived when a putout of Byers on a ground ball ended the inning.
In center field in the fourth inning, Heath made a fine defensive catch of Molly Williams’ fly ball, then, in her last at-bat in the sixth inning, Heath’s high fly was caught near the center-field fence by Alex Steigerwald.
“She made a good catch,” Heath said.
Losing pitcher Byers (2-2) allowed just three hits and had six strikeouts.
“They gave us a run early on an error, then we had a couple errors and gave them three [runs],” said West Branch coach Sis Woods.