Rebels top Patriots, 2-1

The Jay County softball team pushed the game into two extra frames, but a defense that was solid for the entire game bent just enough in the ninth inning to surrender the decisive run.

The Patriot defense kept the game close, but two errors in the top of ninth plagued Jay County, and enabled the Muncie South Rebels (2-2) to sneak back home with a 2-1 victory.

The Rebels’ hard-throwing pitcher Ashley Williams was nearly flawless. Coming off a 5-1 loss against Anderson-Highland Wednesday, she registered 12 strikeouts and only surrendered two hits and two walks in nine innings of work Thursday. Williams was throwing just as hard — or even harder — during the late innings as she was early in the game.

“I was trying to throw hard,” Williams said. “But I think it was also because it was the ninth inning and the adrenaline was rushing, so it helped me throw even harder. I didn’t pitch well last night, so I just tried to come out today and redeem myself.”

Aside from giving up a triple in the second inning, Williams allowed only two runners to reach second base, neither of which scored.

But the Patriots (1-4) had an answer for Williams’ fastballs — solid defense and a good pitching performance by their own starting pitcher. Jay County starter Ashleigh Myers kept the Rebel offense at bay. And when she did allow runners to reach base, the defense found a way to get them out.

In the first four innings alone, the Patriot defense recorded six outs courtesy of Rebel baserunners.

The Patriots got on the board first in the bottom of the second. Stephanie Imel — who also played flawless at third base, recording seven assists — led off the inning with a blast in the right-centerfield gap. Imel legged out a triple and scored when Myers hit a slow-roller to third.

“She’s coming into form,” Jay County head coach Harold Towell said of Imel. “I don’t think there’s anybody she can’t hit, and Steph had a monster game out there today.”

Williams took over from there, sitting down the next eight batters she faced. The only other hit she gave up was an infield single to Saffron Redwine in the sixth.

“(Williams) has shut down a lot of teams this year,” Towell said. “We’re beginning to believe we can play against anybody, and that’s as good of a pitcher as we’ll see in this area.”

It looked as though Myers and the Patriots were going to sneak away with a 1-0 victory, but the Rebels managed to manufacture a run in the top of the sixth.

Miranda Kipfer led off with a single, and then stole second. She advanced to third on another single by Channel Richardson, and scored on a sacrifice fly by Fallon Shively.

The Patriots threatened again in the seventh, when Imel led off the inning with a walk. She stole second, and then third, to put the winning run just 60 feet away. But Jay County couldn’t push her across, as Williams struck out each of the next three Patriot batters she faced.

For the game, Imel had a triple, a walk, two stolen bases and a run scored.

Each team was held scoreless in the eighth, and the Patriot defense — which had played errorless softball for eight innings — committed two errors that cost them the game.

With two outs in the inning, Muncie South’s Sarah Smith drew a walk. She advanced to second on a wide pickoff attempt by catcher Saffron Redwine.

In the next at-bat Sara Huntzinger hit a high fly ball to left-center field, the ball landed in Calah Redwine’s glove, but popped out, enabling Smith to score the go-ahead run.

“Last night (against Bellmont) we played horrible,” Imel said of Wednesday’s 14-1 loss. “And then today it just finally came together. (To play well) we have to have it together mentally, and we had that tonight. And it’s hard to come that short of a win.”[[In-content Ad]]