Giant victory

The first week of the season was a struggle for the Patriots, who opened with three consecutive losses.
Three straight wins now have them above .500 for the first time this year.
Larissa Boles made life easy on her defense, recording 12 of the 15 outs on her own on a rainy Tuesday. The Jay County offense did more than enough to support her one-hitter, scoring nine times in the second inning on the way to a 13-0, five-inning victory.
It was the second straight double-digit win for the Patriots (6-5), who scored eight times in the seventh inning in Monday’s 12-0 win over Muncie Southside.
“We talked about them having that killer instinct in them,” said JCHS coach Doug Arbuckle. “When we’ve got teams down, we need to continue and not just rest and be satisfied with what we’ve got. We need to stay focused, and tonight I thought we did a real good job of that.”
Tori Smith opened the game with an infield single for the Giants (1-4), but Catherine Dunn quickly erased the base runner when she caught Smith trying to steal second base. Boles struck out Ari Reynolds and Katie Rittenhouse to end the inning, and then drew a one-out walk to get the Jay County offense going in the bottom of the frame.
Dunn followed with a single to center field, and Katie Aker brought both base runners home with a double to right-center.
“Larissa came out there in the first inning and struck out two of the first three and then we came in and scored a couple runs in the bottom of the first,” Arbuckle said. “It just got us jump-started.”
The Patriots scored in every inning while Boles dominated the Marion lineup the rest of the way.
Boles struck out the final two batters of the second inning and the first two of the fourth. She finished with nine strikeouts, and recorded another three outs on ground balls back up the middle.
The other two outs came on ground balls to second baseman Rachelle Jackson as the Giants never hit the ball out of the infield.
“That just takes a tremendous amount of pressure off our defense when we can get that performance out of her,” said Arbuckle. “That’s a great asset to any team.”
Boles has struck out 41 batters in 23 innings this season. She has a 1.22 ERA and an 0.78 WHIP.
The only Marion base runners after Smith’s single in the first inning came by way of three walks.
Jay County turned the game into a blowout in the second inning when each of its first eight batters reached base.
Courtney Finnerty led off with a single to left field, Gabby Hart added a bunt single and Betsy Huffman singled to center. Chelsea Tighe, Boles, Dunn and Aker followed with four straight walks.
“We’ve got to be patient,” Arbuckle said. “At times, we’ve been free swingers.
“When we get disciplined and make pitchers work, then good things are going to happen. … That’s a big positive for us to be patient and take the walks.”
Marion pulled starter Kayla Endsley from the game after the fourth walk in a row, and Katlin Petro greeted reliever Ari Reynolds with a line-drive double down the left-field line to bring two runs to the plate. The Patriots scored their nine runs in the inning on four hits, five walks and two errors as they sent 14 batters to the plate.
Jay County added unearned runs in the third and fourth innings for the final margin.
Aker finished 1-for-2 with a double, a walk, three RBIs to lead the Patriots, who will visit Mississinewa on Thursday. Mississinewa finished 11th in this weeks’ Indiana Coaches of Girls Sports Association Class 3A softball poll.
Katlin Petro added a double, two RBIs and a run for Jay County, and Tighe and Finnerty each had a hit, an RBI and two runs. Dunn scored three times, and Boles added two runs.
Endsley suffered the loss for Marion, which was coming off of an 8-7, nine-inning loss Monday to Southwood. She gave up nine runs on five hits and five walks in one-plus innings.
Reynolds limited the Patriots to four runs — one earned — on two hits and a walk in her three innings of work.[[In-content Ad]]