LEWISBURG – The Franklin Monroe Jets missed a chance to move up in the league rankings in their game against the Tri-County North Panthers on Wednesday.
Softball, like many sports, can be a game of momentum. The two teams battled back and forth with first one team then the other gaining the lead.
In a tight one-run game, Franklin Monroe had a chance in the sixth inning to put a runner in scoring position to tie the score but couldn’t get her around. This changed the momentum, and in their half of the inning, the Panthers took advantage and put five runs to put the game out of reach for an 11-5 win. Jet pitcher Belle Cable took the loss.
The game got off to a promising start as the Jets got out to a 4-0 lead in the third inning when Kennedy Morris, Chloe Peters, Chloe McGlinch and Chloe Henninger all scored.
Tri-County North answered with a single run in the last half of the inning. The Panthers next got the lead in the fourth when they batted around and scored five runs.
So now it was the Jets turn to respond in the fifth inning. They had played small ball the inning before and scored after a successful bunt had advanced Filburn to scoring position and Kinsey Goins got a base hit to score the run.
So now FM needed one score to tie. The Jets faced the same scenario – the lead off runner was on first base and they needed to get that runner into scoring position. But the Jets were not able to execute. The next two batters attempted to bunt and popped out. Adding insult to injury, the second bunt attempt caught the runner off of first base. This resulted in a double play and the inning ended with no score.
“We get that bunt down and the tying run is on second base,” Franklin Monroe coach Mike Morris said. “Then we bring her in and the game is going change. It is going to make that other team feel the pressure. When we didn’t get it done, it was a big momentum change.”
This shifted the momentum for good in the game as the Panthers would add to their lead with a big sixth inning and shut down the Jets in the seventh. It was a disappointing finish to a game that had been a closely contested match.
“We’ve been doing this all year,” Coach Morris said. “We have had a habit of giving up big innings. We get up on somebody early and just can’t keep them down. I do think that we hit well tonight. We just have to get our bunts down. Since I have been here, we have done well when we bunted well and been aggressive making plays.
“Offensively, Kennedy Morris our leadoff hitter, had a good day. She had two doubles today. Kinsey Goins had a good day at the plate she was 2-for-3.”
