Whitko Softball: Wildcats Earn Shutout Over Rival
AKRON — If you’re ever playing the slot machines at a casino, seeing triple sevens come up is just about is good as it gets. The Whitko softball team got a big payout Monday night as it saw, or rather forced, trip sevens to appear on the scoreboard at Tippecanoe Valley.
The Wildcats hung seven runs on the board in the second, third and fifth innings on their way to a convincing 21-0 victory over its Three Rivers Conference rival.
Whitko used 17 hits to help earn the three-touchdown win over the Vikings with Hanna Yohe leading the way with two doubles, a triple and a single. The Wildcats broke the game open in the top of the second after the scoring was started on an RBI single from Tori Silveus. Reannon Hopkins followed that up with a double which scored three runs. Without a moment’s notice, the rout was on.
“I was proud of the girls for staying in the game mentally,” began Whitko head coach Michelle Garr. “Sometimes with games like this you’re mind can kind of wander. But, I was impressed with everyone. We had six subs come in and we liked what we saw from them. It’s just really nice to see.”
Ellie Snep picked up the win for Whitko. The freshman tossed a complete-game shutout and surrendered just two hits.
“Ellie did a nice job for us,” Garr said of her pitcher. “We wanted her to keep the ball low and she did that very well and avoided giving up any walks. It was a good performance.”
Whitko tacked seven more runs on in the third and would repeat that effort once more in the fifth, highlighted by Snep’s first career home run. But while the bats were hot for the ‘Cats, Valley gave its opponent too many free passes. The Vikings committed eight errors in the game.
“Errors happen,” said Valley head coach Daryl Shoemaker. “I’ve been telling them all year that physical errors will happen. You’ll make an error or two every now and then. But when you start stacking those up as a team, runs start to stack up. Today was a perfect example of that.
“In the two innings that we didn’t allow runs, we maybe had one error, it couldn’t stack up. The other innings we just had miscues. Things like missing our cut-offs and allowing runners to advance. It’s a cycle. It was defense tonight, all the way. We’ll have to work on it.”
Katie Gunter had both hits for Shoemaker’s squad as she was a perfect 2-2 on the night. Gunter also pitched one and two-thirds innings and recorded one strikeout. Kayla Scott took the loss for the Vikings.
Joining Yohe, Hopkins, Silveus and Snep with multiple-hit performances were Emalee Duggins and Emily Hughes. Duggins had three singles while Hughes had a pair.
Whitko (7-2, 2-0) will host Huntington North Tuesday night. Valley (6-7, 0-2) will host Pioneer on Tuesday.