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West Jessamine's Kendal Anderson and Kelsey Garrett bumped fists following a scoreless inning on defense. (Photo by Jonathan Stark/jstark@jessaminejournal.com / April 17, 2012) |
It’s been three years since West Jessamine’s softball team defeated East Jessamine, but the Lady Colts made it look easy as they knocked off the Lady Jaguars 5-1 on Tuesday night at West.
Heading into the bottom of the sixth inning, East and West were locked in a 1-1 tie. The Lady Colts were struggling at the plate as East pitcher Halee Hamm had retired nine in a row. Hamm sat down the first two batters in the sixth to run her total to 11 straight.
West’s Alyson Archer was finally ablteto break up the skid with a single to center field; and Samantha Cross followed with a four-pitch walk to put runners on first and second base.
“I told them before the game that you don’t want to go extra innings with a team like East,” West Jessamine coach Michelle Baker said. “I told them they hold their own destiny in the district. I think our district is pretty wide open this year. I told them that if they want to win games, they have to put themselves in the driver’s seat.”
Jessica Baker stepped to the plate with an RBI already to her credit on the the night. She hit a bloop fly ball to shallow left field that was dropped and allowed Archer and Cross to score and give West a 3-1 lead.
“Jessica Baker came up big for us today,” coach Baker said. “She’s been a big help to us this year.”
“All of their runs came off errors or where we should have made plays; that’s kind of been the handicap of us all year,” East Jessamine coach Tom Hamm said. “We got to cut the errors out of the game.”
A single by Kelsey Garrett extended the inning, and an infield hit by Sarah Baker coupled with a throwing error allowed Jessica Baker and Garrett to score and push the lead to 5-1.
In the top of the seventh, Garrett, who was in the circle, got two quick outs before Haleigh Fain singled to center field. West got the last out as Fain attempted to steal second base during the next at bat but was thrown out retreating to first base.
Garrett allowed one run on six hits, four walks and a hit batter. She struck out one.
The Lady Colts took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning as Jessica Baker singled to left-center field to score Cross from second.
East tied the game 1-1 on fielder’s choice by Felicia Farmer, that scored Fain.
The Lady Jags fell to 5-13 on the season; they lost 11 games all of last season.
“I think we’ll turn things around. We’re a young team and play like a young team,” Hamm said. “I think they need to find a leader; that’s what they’re missing the most.”
The Lady Colts are 8-10; the win stops a three-game skid for West. Baker said for the first time this season all 18 players showed up ready to play and win, but in the end, this game was no different than any other and that West needed to show up like that for every game.
“We needed a turning point this season,” Baker said. “We’ve been on and off. Some days they play well; some days they don’t play well. Hopefully this will be turning point for us.”
West last defeated East Jessamine in 2009 with a 4-2 win in the district championship. West also won the regular-season duel that season.
