SOFTBALL: Lady Panthers beaten by Waterloo, top Woodlawn
The Lady Panthers suffered their third loss in a week to an unbeaten opponent on Saturday morning against Waterloo, 5-2, before rebounding in the afternoon with a convincing 10-2 victory over Woodlawn at Greg Hale Field in Pinckneyville.
Lady Bulldogs starter Kasey Bradley gave up just four PCHS hits in the morning game and Waterloo never trailed after plating three runs in the top of the first on three hits and a walk.
"It's kind of the same situation we were in against Nashville the other day where it's an aggressive pitcher who is attacking the strike zone," said Pinckneyville head coach Alan Engelhardt, "and we were taking a lot of two-strike type of swings, and you're not going to have success hitting the ball that way. With two strikes you want to grind, you want to battle, which again we were fine with two strikes, but early in the count we've got to be able to attack a little bit more than we were."
The Lady Panthers did have some early success against Bradley, getting two runs in the bottom of the first on a two-run double by Brooklyn Morrow, but couldn't string anything together after that.
Meanwhile, Waterloo tacked on an unearned run against Mariah Clark in the second, and had two hits lead to another insurance tally in the sixth.
Morrow (1-3, 2 RBI, 2B), Clark (1-3) and Kylee Kling (2-3, R, 2B, SAC) hit safely for PCHS against Waterloo. Clark gave up four earned runs on nine hits and a walk with four strikeouts in the circle.
Unbeaten teams Nashville and Carterville also got the best of the Lady Panthers last week.
"We are a notch below those teams right now," admitted Engelhardt. "The difference isn't enormous, but the difference is doing a lot of the small things. You hope you gain some experience from those games, and get better from playing them."
Pinckneyville's offense picked it up in their second Saturday game, however, belting thirteen hits against Woodlawn while Morrow fanned nine and gave up just nine hits as the starting pitcher, none of those hits coming after the third inning.
"I thought Mariah settled in (against Waterloo), they hit her hard early, Woodlawn hit Brooklyn a little bit early, but after that they both kind of made it difficult for them to put runs on the board," said Engelhardt.
"The first game we made a couple mistakes early that hurt us, but after that we were solid. The second game we were pretty solid throughout. Whenever your pitcher is throwing strikes and your defense is playing well behind them, you're going to have a chance for success."
Woodlawn struck first with three hits and a run in the top of the first inning, but Morrow tied it with an RBI double to score Kling (single) in the bottom of the inning, then scored the go-ahead run on a double by Clark. Kling made it 3-1 with an RBI double in the second, plating Lydia Pestka (single).
Morrow and Emma Banach singled to start PCHS's third inning, then Clark drove in a run on a sacrifice fly before Banach scored on an error by Woodlawn's catcher to make it 5-2.
The Lady Panthers broke it open in the bottom of the sixth with five more runs, getting RBIs in the rally from Banach (two-run single) and Kearsten Opp (two-run double).
Kling (3-4, 2 R, RBI, 2B), Morrow (2-3, RBI, 2B, BB), Banach (2-4, 2 R, 2 RBI), Clark (2-3, 2 RBI, SAC), C. Opp (1-2, 2B, BB), K. Opp (1-1, 2 RBI, 2B) and Pestka (1-2, R, 2 SAC) had hits for PCHS.
Pinckneyville (12-5, 3-2) travels to Du Quoin on Monday.