Central Mountain Softball Gets First Win- Downs DuBois in Eight
By Tom Elling
MILL HALL-First year head coach Taylor Thompson admitted post game that the nerves had finally settled in her stomach. The former Wildcat player found coaching quite a different avenue than that of a player.
Her team jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first. Cirstyn Watson beat out a slow roller to third to lead off. Audrey Eiler sacrificed her up a base. The after a fine drive out, veteran Cora Myers hit a ball to the right center fence, plating Watson. Josey Shultz followed with a wong-way triple to left knocking in Myers.
Neither team would score the next two innings, but DuBois chipped away with single runs in the 4th, 5th, and 6th innings to take a 3-2 lead. The Lady Wildcats kept their poise and used two walks (Eiler and Katelyn Bowman) and a sac fly to center to tie the score. Some sloppy base running and a nice double play got the visiting DuBois team out of the inning tied at three.
Shultz had come in as a relief pitcher for Camdyn Weaver in the top of the 7th and retired the good hitting visiting team 1-2-3. In the 8th, she retired the first batter then losing pitcher Ava Baronick (who had three hits -two doubles and a single) ripped a one-out single to center. Audrey Hale followed with a loop single over first. But the calm lefty Shultz was up to the task getting a pop to firstbase and a 3-2 strikeout to end the threat.
Central Mountain put on their rally caps and put together three singles to load the bases. With two outs, the star of the game Cora Myers hit a high fly to center. The winds that had been nasty all day turned a friendly twist and made a diving catch by DuBois CF Haley Reed too difficult. Mallory Wunder scored the winning run, giving her coach the first win in her career.
Coach Thompson praised her team for playing through rough, windy conditions and never giving up.
“We put the ball in play and good things happened. I am so proud of this team.”
Reminded that always-strong Hollidaysburg would be coming to Clinton County of Friday, she just smiled and admitted there were some mistakes that needed to be corrected. (There was some sloppy baserunning.)
“We’ll be out there hustling and playing hard,” the smiling coach stated.
000 111 0 0 3 Runs, 7 hits, 1 error
200 000 1 1 4 runs, 10 hits, 1 error
