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Lady Patriot Courtney Osborn is tagged out at home as Franklin Monroe
catcher Carrie Baker applies the tag during
action in the sixth inning
at Tri-Village Thursday. The Jets walked away with a 5-4 Cross County
Conference victory in a
grueling 11 inning affair. CNO Photo by Danny
Stockton, stocktonstudio.com
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Lady Jets top
Tri-Village in 11 inning affair
Boston scores game winner
By George Starks
NEW MADISON- Franklin Monroe coach Mike Morris is no different than any
other coach.
He’ll take a win no matter how ugly it might be.
On the other side of the field is Tri-Village coach Tracey Barhorst.
She would like to see a few more wins, no matter how ugly they are.
Ugly was the word Thursday at Tri-Village as the Lady Jets of Franklin
Monroe provided the opposition.
It took 11 hard fought innings before a winner would be decided as the
Jets would escape with a 5-4 victory.
With the Jets leaving too many runners on base (8) and Tri-Village
fighting the error bug (7) at times it was hard to tell who wanted it
the most.
Of the seven miscues in the field, the biggest for the Patriots proved
to be the deadliest in the 11th in a 4-4 deadlock.
With one down Susan Boston would single to right to get thing going for
the Jets.
That’s when the wheels fell off for the Patriots.
With Boston now standing at second, Emilee Morris would follow with a
shot to third.
Paige Mallott would field the ball cleanly but would make an errant
throw to first.
As the ball squirted away from Shelby Frech, Boston would score on the
two base error, providing the winning run for Franklin Monroe.
“It’s strange to have that many errors in a game and still be right
there in the end,” said Barhorst
“This has been the story for us all season long. We’re leaving too many
runner on base,” admitted Morris. “We left runners on base the first
three innings so we decided to play a little small ball. We had to
start stealing bases and become a little bit more aggressive in our
base running and it finally paid off.”
Tri-Village drew first blood in the bottom of the third.
With Paige Mallott standing at second with a two out double, senior
Racheal Fickett ripped a single to left and the Patriots were up 1-0.
Franklin Monroe took a 2-1 lead in the next frame as Morgan Booher and
Jordan Stickley would dent the plate for FM, all due to fielding errors.
The Pats would gain the tie in the fifth when senior Echo Brown
(heading for the Marine Corps after graduation) would lead the frame
off with a walk. One out later, Alex Bietry would lay down a sacrifice
bunt, moving Brown to third. A bad throw would then allow Brown to
score on the play and the Patriots were once again even at 2-2.
The Jets would plate two in the seventh as Morris would score on an
error and later Morgan Bingham would get in third on a sac fly RBI to
center off the bat of Bryanna Diceanu.
Looking to put the game away, Morris, the FM pitcher, went to work but
the Pats would not go away.
With Mallott and Bietry aboard, Fickett would rip a double to center,
scoring the pair and extra inning would come and so would the pitching
for both teams.
Extra innings is nothing new for these two teams.
“We went 12 with this bunch two year ago in the tournament,” said
Morris. “Every time we come here, we struggle and tonight is the first
time I’ve beat this team during the regular season. Emilee has been
awesome for us this year so we’ve got to trust our defense and make the
plays. We made a couple of errors tonight but our defense is strong and
the outfield is coming around. The thing I’m worried about right now is
out hitting. We have to get runners in.”
It was the second night in a row the Patriots had went into extras.
Wednesday, TV fell in eight to Miami East in a conference game.
“My kids are playing very hard,” said Barhorst. “They battle at the
plate and they do make some good defensive plays. We’ve just got to put
it all together and make it happen. We are now 3-8 (2-5 CCC) on the
season and it’s our sixth game, losing by one run. It’s tough but they
are keeping their heads up and playing hard. We’ll get it turned
around. We play in a tough league but if we dwell on our errors, it
will come back to eat us.”
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