Senior Mollie Ericksen heads to home plate after hitting a two-run home run to put the Lady Trojans up 7-0.
Drew Terhall | The Daily Advocate
By Drew Terhall
DailyAdvocate.com
ARCANUM — The Lady Trojans are moving on in the Southwest Division III playoff tournament after a 10-0 win over West Liberty-Salem on May 10 at home.
The big rally came in the second inning as Arcanum scored six runs, all with two outs. Head coach Mike Morris said it only takes one player or one hit to get the team going at the plate.
“We’ve been doing that all year. We get two outs and somebody always been stepping up and getting a big hit for us,” Morris said. “We struggle the first couple of innings and it’s like the switch turns on and we start hitting gaps, got our bunts down and taking extra bases on their mistakes.”
The Lady Trojans did put up a run in the first inning on a RBI hit from senior Paige Burrell. Then in the second inning, senior Reece Blinn led off with a single.
After two outs, senior Kaitlyn Toy drove in Blinn to go up 2-0. Toy then scored on a steal to third and made it home on an error. After getting a runner on, junior Emilie Fout had a RBI double. Burrell then drove in Fout for her second RBI of the game.
To cap off the scoring, senior Mollie Ericksen hit a two-run home run to center field to go up 7-0.
Arcanum added two more runs in the third inning. Freshman Grace Fry and sophomore Kenzie Byrne each drove in a run. Then in the fourth, Blinn scored Ericksen on a sacrifice groundout.
Junior Hannah Kendig pitched four innings and allowed a hit and had four strikeouts. Junior Belle Harleman pitched the last inning and had two strikeouts allowing no baserunners.
Fout had three hits in the game. Burrell and Ericksen finished with two hits each. As a team, Arcanum had 13 hits.
Morris said in a game like this, he would have wanted to get some more players in and give them some playing time. But with how the game progressed, he just wasn’t able to. The Lady Trojans do have another chance to give more players some playing time.
“I was hoping to do it tonight, but it just didn’t work out. Hopefully, we’ll have a shot, maybe Saturday, we will get some other girls playing time against Russia and keep everybody fresh and ready to go,” Morris said.
Arcanum will travel to Russia on May 13 for an 11 a.m. first pitch. For their next playoff game, the two seeded Lady Trojans will host the 10th seed in Brookville on May 15 for a 5 p.m. first pitch.
Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected]
