Lady Tide Use Middle Innings To Defeat Brookville 4-3

CURWENSVILLE – The Curwensville girls softball team utilized the middle innings (4^th & 5^th) to pull out a 4-3 win over visiting Brookville Friday afternoon.

And there was also drama at the end of the contest as the Lady Raiders added a run in the top half of the seventh to make it 4-3 in favor of the Lady Tide.  Brookville, however, had the bases loaded with one out before Curwensville pulled out the win with a force out at the plate and a ground out to first base to improve to 5-2 on the season.

Lady Tide head coach Allen Leigey liked the fact that his squad won a tight game, saying afterwards, “We actually needed a game like this one because we needed a good measuring stick for games down the road that could, in fact, be an elimination game.  So this was good for us.”

Brookville took a 1-0 lead in the top half of the first inning thanks to an RBI double to right center field by pitcher Hannah Simpson that scored Laken Hergent, who had singled with two outs.

The 1-0 margin stood until the top of the fourth when the Lady Raiders got another double from Simpson who scored moments later on a single by Elliette Park to give the visitors a 2-0 lead before the Lady Tide’s offense would wake up.

Curwensville scored its first run in the bottom of the fourth on a bases loaded walk to pinch hitter Teghan Jacobson which scored Nikki Harker. Harker started the inning by drawing one of six walks on the afternoon given up by Simpson.

With six hits and six walks the Lady Tide made it all count as Leigey commented, “We took those walks with our six hits and made the most of them.  Without those walks it obviously could have easily been a different story.”

The Lady Tide added three more runs in the bottom half of the fifth that turned out to be the winning runs.

Rylee Young led off with a base on balls which was followed by singles from Hannah Dixon and Nikki Harker.  The single by Harker drove Young home which knotted the game at 2-2.

With Dixon on third base and Harker at first, and no outs, the Lady Tide sent Harker to second base in an attempted steal.

For whatever reason, Brookville threw to second base to try to cut Harker down, which easily allowed Dixon to come home and give the Lady Tide a 3-2 lead.  And, to boot, Harker was safe on the steal attempt.

Moments later Alaina Stiles delivered a double to left field that scored Harker with what proved to be the game winner.

The Lady Raiders rallied for a run in the top of the seventh but fell short, as mentioned earlier, when they left the bases loaded and one out.

Brookville, now 1-5, got two hits from Simpson and Hergent.

The Lady Tide travel to Clearfield Monday to meet the Lady Bison.  Game time is 4:30 pm.

One schedule note for the Lady Tide.  Wednesday’s game against Johnsonburg will now be played at Johnsonburg instead of Curwensville. The Lady Rams will visit the Lady Tide on Friday, May 8.

BROOKVILLE – 3

Brenna Dworek cf 3000,  Caitlyn Hill lf 3010,  Laken Hergent c 4121, Hannah Simpson p 4121,  Hannah Kirkwood ss 4000,  Elliette Park 3b 3011,  Alissa Waterson 3b 0000,  Natasha Stritzinger 2b 3000,  Megan Miller dp 3010,  Kennedy Gilbert 1b 3110,  Sara Dempsey flex/rf 0000, TOTALS – 30 3 8 3.

CURWENSVILLE – 4

Kayley Harnett 2b 4010,  Rylee Young p 2100,  Hannah Dixon ss 3110,  Nikki Harker 1b 1211,  Megan McCartney lf 3010,  Haley McGarry dp 2010, Dominique Newkirk pr 0000,  Alaina Stiles flex/c 1011, Camryn Richards rf 0000,  Jordan Round 3b 3000,  Madison Bumbarger cf 2000,  Teghan Jacobson ph 0001, TOTALS –  21 4 6 3

SCORE BY INNINGS                        R  H  E

BROOKVILLE             100 100 1 – 3  8  0

CURWENSVILLE      000 130  X – 4 6  1

ERRORS –Richards.  LOB – BROOKVILLE – 8; CURWENSVILLE – 8.  2B – Stiles; Simpson 2.  SB – Dixon, Hergent. SAC – Richards 2. HBP – Young (by Simpson).

PITCHING

BROOKVILLE

Simpson  6 IP,  6 H,  4 R, 3 ER,  6 BB,  8 K, 1 HB

CURWENSVILLE

Young       7 IP,  8 H,  3 R, 3 ER,  2 BB, 6 K

WP – Young (5-2)              LP – Simpson

UMPIRES: Colleen Shannon, Jay Siegel.

Lady Tide Scoreboard: