Big Inning Lets Lions Roar
BOURBON – It seems to be a theme with Triton softball this season. Up against quality opponents, Triton has let the big inning haunt them in making the mountain too high to climb. Again Friday night, a six-run third inning from Bremen was the Mt. Everest in an 11-7 Lions win at Triton.
In similar fashions to earlier season losses to Rochester and Wawasee, the wheels came off in one inning that made the rally too much to make. The third inning had Bremen collect six base hits, a bases loaded walk and an error to do its damage. Five of those hits were consecutive and four drove in runs.
Brooke Fitch, Chelsea Huppert, Breann Wilson and Jessica Gall all drove in runs with hits and Sara Knepper also drew the bases loaded walk to bring in another run in the inning.
“Yeah, we have had that problem this season, and I’m not sure if it’s confidence or mental or what,” stated Triton head coach Steve McBride of his team’s troubles. “We’re still trying to find ourselves a little bit. We have been moving kids around to help with injury troubles we have had, and it shows at times with mistakes and kids trying to figure some things out.”
Bremen added a run in the fourth and three more in the fifth to take a 10-0 lead before Triton woke up at the plate in the bottom half of the fifth.
A Lauren Hostrawser RBI single got Triton on the board. An error allowed Triton another run and Nicole Sechrist followed with an RBI double.
Hannah Jennings dropped in an RBI double to cut Bremen’s lead in half at 10-5, enough to chase Bremen starter Huppert from the game. Huppert gave up just one earned run on six hits while reliever Shannon Arndt closed the door with 2.1 innings of relief, including a big out to get out of the fifth.
Another error in the seventh afforded Triton two more runs, making the score a lot closer than the game was shaping up to be just two innings before.
“Tonight it was ‘let’s get the advantage on them’ and force them to have to chase us,” said Bremen head coach Mike Huppert. “I didn’t think we would have an inning like the third where we just kept moving up one base at a time, but we’ll take it.”
Fitch paced Bremen with four hits while Shelby Zellmer had three hits and an RBI. Wilson, Arndt and Sabrina Gilley all had two hits and Arndt scored three runs.
Sechrist and Hostrawser each had two hits and both had fine defensive plays that saved further damage. Triton starting pitcher Brycelyn Garbison was touched up for 13 hits and eight earned runs without recording a strikeout on Bremen. Courtney Jennings worked three innings of relief and allowed just one earned run to help keep Triton close.
“We’ve had this happen this year, where one pitcher looks great and the other can’t get an out,” McBride said. “I don’t think it’s anything mechanical right now, it’s just guts and heart. We could have quit here down 10 runs. We had every right to say ‘let’s just go home.’ But we got in there and fought. As a coach, that’s the kind of stuff we want out of this team. We want them to fight.”
Triton drops to 4-4 overall and 1-1 in the Northern State Conference. Bremen moves to 7-1 overall and 2-0 in the NSC, boasting of some very impressive non-conference wins against Mishawaka Marian, Fairfield and Mishawaka.