Hot Start Zips Zebras Past Trojans
BOURBON – Triton softball head coach Steve McBride wished out loud for a do-over. Watching his team fall down 9-0 to Rochester Monday night, a 10-6 final score left McBride wanting to have a couple scenarios back.
“Those first couple of innings were just a disaster,” McBride said. “We knew it could be trouble having to put a few kids in different positions. But we threw the ball all over the place and gave them a couple extra runs. Instead of it being 10-6, it should have been a lot closer.”
Rochester got into the position early doing what it has done for years. It’s lineup put the ball in play and let the pitching of Lexy Holland carry them. Taking advantage of a pair of Triton errors in the first, an RBI double by Holland and pair of RBI singles from Taryn Stockberger and Alexis Elliott had Rochester up 3-0 after one.
The lead doubled to 6-0 after Alexa Holland and Kennedy Musselman each added RBI knocks followed by another Triton error that allowed the sixth run to plate.
Triton committed six errors in the game, which showed some of the defensive maneuvering the Lady Trojans had to do in the offseason with key losses in the infield to Mallorie Jennings, Allyson Brown and Krystal Sellers. A baserunning blunder in the bottom of the fourth even wiped out a Triton run leaving third too early on a sacrifice fly attempt.
Down 9-0, it looked all but academic heading into the fifth, but the Lady Trojans responded in a big way.
Heather Stichter cracked an RBI single to get Triton on the board, and in the sixth, cut Rochester’s lead to 9-6 with a grand slam to left center. The one-out shot, the first homer of Stichter’s varsity career, all of a sudden had Holland rattled and pointed interest now back in the home dugout.
Lexy Holland, who helped Rochester to a lofty state ranking last season, showed her veteran poise, recording her seventh strikeout the very next batter and induced a groundout to end the threat. Triton would go quietly in the seventh.
“I thought Lexy showed a lot of guts to work out of that jam in the sixth,” said Rochester head coach Carla Holland. “She got into some trouble, but she knows how to pitch, and has been through tough situations before. I think she just left some pitches in the zone, and credit Triton, they hit them.”
Lexy gave up eight hits, walked one and fanned seven for the win. Triton starter Brycelyn Garbison was touched up for 10 hits, nine runs and struck out two in four innings. Courtney Jennings provided three innings of relief, allowing just two hits and fanning three.
Becky Malchow added three hits and scored three runs while Elliott had three hits for the Zebras. Jennings had two hits and scored twice for the Lady Trojans.
The win opens Rochester’s last quest in Class 3-A after finding out last week it will drop to 2-A with the new realignment for next year. The Zebras lost in the semi’s of the ultra-tough South Bend St. Joseph sectional and come into the 2015 season ranked No. 16.
Triton, which made it to the semi-state level of the Class 1-A tournament for the first time in the program’s history last June, open the season ranked No. 5 in the 1-A poll but fall to 0-1 overall with a week to think about things before it’s next game Monday at home against Tippecanoe Valley.
“We’ve got a senior trip this week that cuts into the schedule, and have a lot of time between games,” McBride said. “I liked how we played at the end of the game today, and gave us a lot of things to work on and feel good about. Rochester is a heckuva team to open against, but two years ago down 9-0, we would have folded. We didn’t do that today.”