Only four games remain in the girls 7-8 coach-pitch league regular season after Monday night’s pair of contests at Pete Holt Field. With the season dwindling down and tournament seeds up for grabs, every wins means a little more. Just ask Prater Electric and Big Mo’s.
Both squads kept their spots near the top of the league standings with big wins Monday. Prater Electric topped Keepsake Catering 11-8 in the first game before Big Mo’s followed with a 17-4 blowout victory over Hullett’s Nursery. With their wins, Prater Electric remained in third place with a 6-3 record while Big Mo’s stayed in second at 6-2.
Prater Electric looked destined to go on to its sixth win after a six-run second inning, but it wasn’t until the team added four runs in the fourth inning that the victory would be secure.
The bottom of the Prater Electric order came up big in the fourth inning as Jordan Veach and Avery Peterson supplied RBI doubles. Page Sweeton, Regin Grissom, Paisley Wanamaker, Dallis Melton, Ciara Johnson and Kora Forbes added singles in the frame to help their team take a 10-5 lead entering the bottom of the fourth inning.
Keepsake Catering made things interesting in the bottom of the fifth when Zoie Conner blasted a RBI triple and came home to score on a single by Hailey Simpson, but the rally was too late.
Prater Electric trailed 2-0 going into the second inning after Conner hit a two-run, inside-the-park home run for Keepsake Catering in the first inning. The visitors didn’t get down though as Melton matched Conner’s feat during a six-run spurt for Prater Electric.
Melton’s two-run, inside-the-park home run came after Veach, Grissom, Peterson, Andrea Jefferson and Paisley Wanamaker all had hits in the second inning. Veach, Grissom, Peterson and Wanamaker all picked up RBIs on their hits.
Keepsake Catering came back with one run in the bottom of the second inning – a RBI single by Makayla Cagle following a lead-off double by Lataya Johnson. The home team would add two more in the second on RBI doubles by Conner and Jazlynn Ward to draw within one at 6-5. It would be the closest the team would get though as the four-run rally by Prater Electric in the fourth inning helped drop Keepsake Catering to 3-6 this season.
Wanamaker and Forbes led Prater Electric with three hits apiece. Melton, Johnson, Jefferson, Sweeton, Veach, Grissom and Peterson added two hits apiece while Abigal Fann finished with one.
Conner finished a single away from the cycle as she led Keepsake Catering with a 3-for-3 performance. Simpson, Johnson, Cagle, Ward, Jaylnn Jordan, Tinslee Tanner and Jera Jones also had hits for Keepsake Catering in the loss.
In game two Monday, Big Mo’s scored seven runs in each of the third and fourth innings to pull away from Hullett’s Nursery.
Jenna Newby and Bella Bain hit back-to-back, inside-the-park home runs to spark the surge in the third inning for Big Mo’s while Alyssa Mosley blasted an inside-the-park home run to start a seven-run fourth inning.
Mary Grace Martin added a four-hit performance for Big Mo’s, including a RBI single in the third inning and a two-run triple in the fourth inning. Hailey Childress, Loren Hinshaw, Annabelle Reinitz, Isabella Pennington, Kimberly Ortega and Trinity Eckel also had RBI hits for Big Mo’s in the victory.
Most of the runs for Hullett’s Nursery came in the top of the fourth inning when the visitors plated three runs. Halle Smith started the inning with a single and would come home to score on Maddie Jones’ double. Lauren Mansfield added a RBI single before Sydney Pardo’s run-scoring double brought in the team’s final run. The team’s first run came in the second inning on a RBI single by Laklynn Whitaker. Kennedy Pegg and Karrigan Smith also had hits in Monday’s loss that dropped Hullett’s Nursery to 0-9.