Gallery by Heather Belcher
New Richmond – A day after scoring 16 runs in a win over Westside, Wyoming East’s softball team seemingly used up its weekly allotment of offense.
Chapmanville pitcher Chloe Murphy held the Lady Warriors to just three hits, tossing a perfect game through 4.2 innings as the Tigers swept their season series with East, taking a 9-1 six-inning win in New Richmond Friday.
The duo of Murphy, and her battery mate Ashleigh Mahon, carried their weight throughout the evening.
Mahon finished 3-for-4 at the plate, reaching base in all four of her plate appearances while the freshman Murphy stifled East’s bats all evening.
“She can throw,” Chapmanville coach Ronnie Ooten said of Murphy. “She’s a real good pitcher. She hasn’t learned how to finish – she’s got a little bit to learn about that but she does a great job.”
Chapmanville’s bats were alive early with a one-out walk and an error putting runners in scoring position for Brooke Christian. The outfielder responded with a groundout that scored Mikayla Tomblin before East pitcher Olivia Hylton induced another groundout to escape the inning.
The 1-0 score held until the third inning when Mahon, who homered off Hylton in New Richmond last season, did so again, launching a solo shot over the centerfield fence.
“She does well,” Ooten said of Mahon, “I’ve had her out at third base almost all year but I brought her in to catch. The ninth grade pitcher has a little more confidence in her catching. But we played good ball today for a change. We haven’t played this well in a few games.”
It was a unique inning for Hylton who struck out four and induced a lineout in the frame but back-to-back batters reached on dropped third strikes following Mahon’s blast.
Figuring it had worked three times, Hylton fired her fourth strikeout of the frame to escape further danger.
Meanwhile the East offense couldn’t catch a break.
A liner to right off the bat of Makayla King dropped but Christian scooped it up in the outfield and fired to first to nail King on what looked like a sure hit.
The bad luck carried into the bottom of the fourth when Kayley Bane hit a hard liner to center that looked like it would drop for extra bases but a leaping snag by Tomblin proved otherwise.
“It happens, but sometimes you’ve go to make your breaks,” East head coach Doc Warner said. “We aren’t very good at making them. We sit back and take what’s coming and be up in the box. You can’t hit balls like that.”
The Tigers meanwhile steadily picked up in the fifth inning, stringing together four hits with RBIs from Erica Sigmon and Erin Adkins plating two more runs for a 4-0 Chapmanville lead.
East secured its first hit in the bottom of the frame when Savannah Brehm smacked a double into the gap in left but was left stranded after Murphy induced a weak groundout to first.
Then the floodgates opened.
After a leadoff walk in the sixth, Hylton nearly worked out of a jam with a pop out and a groundout but a single from Mahan scored the walked batter, starting a streak in which five straight batters reached base. It all culminated in a five-run inning with Baylee Belcher’s bases-clearing double highlighting the frame.
“We got a little more aggressive late,” Ooten said. “We found the holes and made them pay. That’s the way you’ve got to do to win these ball games. They’re a good ball club and I know Doc don’t think that at times but they’re a good ball club.”
East avoided the shutout in the bottom of the frame when Maddie Clark hit a one-out single and later scored when Paige Laxton lined a single into the right field corner but that was all the hosts could muster, failing to extend the game.
“I think we’re thinking too much,” Warner said. “We can hit in (the cages) and out here but in the game we’ve already made our out before we get in the box because we’re scared to death. We’ve played 20 games and are scared when we get in the box. Scared to death.”
East drops to 12-10 and will kick off a challenging final week when it hosts Scott on Monday.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
C: 101 025 – 9 10 4
WE: 000 001 – 1 3 0
Pitching and Catching – C: Murphy and Mahon; WE: Hylton and Bane. WP: Murphy, LP: Hylton.
Hitting – C: Mahon 3-4 (HR, 2 RBI), Brook Christina 0-4 (RBI), Erica Simon 1-3 (RBI), Baylee Belcher 3-4 (2B, 3 RBI), Erin Adkins 2-4 (2 RBI), Chloe Murphy 1-4 (2B); WE: Paige Laxton 1-3 (RBI), Savannah Brehm 1-2 (2B), Maddie Clark 1-2.
