Long ball lifts Jay Co.

All Jay County High School junior Gabby Hart wanted to do was put the ball in play with a hard ground ball.
The Patriots were trailing the Vikings 3-2 in the bottom of the fifth inning with two outs and runners on first and second.
Hart, who had launched two home runs in a doubleheader Saturday against Bishop Luers, had an even 2-2 count against Huntington North pitcher Hannah Middlebrooks.
The HNHS sophomore left her next pitch over the plate, and Hart deposited it over the fence in right center field for a three-run home run, powering her Patriot softball team to a 5-4 victory against its sectional rival.
“I had two strikes on me and I needed to get a hit because we were down,” Hart said. “I just needed to get a ground ball. It was a perfect strike so I had to swing at it.
“It hit the right spot, and I knew it was gone when I hit that spot.”
 Vikings coach Darci Brown said the pitch to Hart was one of two mistakes Middlebrooks made in the circle. The other was in the third inning when she left a pitch over the plate against Larissa Boles, who rifled it over the fence just right of dead center field.
“We’re still working on that,” Brown said. “We’re making sure we can hit zones we need to hit. It was just mental errors on the mound.
“In all honesty we had two bad pitches tonight. Take away those two (and) we were solid.”
Hart’s three-run shot continued her offensive tear through the last three games. She hit a bomb with two runners on in the first game (a 7-2 loss) of the doubleheader Saturday, then hit a solo shot in the second game (a 9-0 win) to match her home run total from all of last season.
“Last year I was struggling,” said Hart, whose two homers in 2014 came in a surprise 8-0 victory against Homestead in the opening round of the sectional tournament. “I wanted to be able to hit this year and do my job, help get my team to where they need to be.”
JCHS coach Doug Arbuckle is pleased with the early-season surge from his junior first baseman.
“Super job from her following up what she had done Saturday,” said Arbuckle, whose team improved to 3-4 on the season. “We talked to her a little bit, not trying to pull the ball so much because her power is to center and right center field.
“For her to stay on that ball and not try to do too much with it … she got a good swing on it. (Middlebrooks) gave up too much of the plate there and Gabby hit it good.”
In a rematch of the 2014 sectional semifinal that Huntington North won 1-0, the Vikings (0-3) got on the board in the top of the first inning. Senior Maddi Kennedy jumped on Boles’ first pitch, reaching on an infield error, and later came around to score on an RBI single by Aubrie Eckert.
The Vikings scored another run in the third on an RBI single up the middle by Erin Burke. The sophomore — Huntington North started only three upperclassmen — drove in Ariene Butler, who had led off the frame with a single.
But Boles tied the game for the Patriots in the bottom of the third with the first home run of her senior season.
“She hit a nice ground ball (in the first inning) through the 5-6 hole, and she comes up and hits a nice home run too,” said Arbuckle. Boles also recorded the win, scattering seven hits, giving up four runs — three earned — while walking one and striking out nine in the complete-game effort.
She had been struggling at the plate this season, as she was 3-of-20 with just one extra-base hit entering Monday’s contest. She went 2-for-3 against the Vikings, and Arbuckle is hopeful it will boost her confidence level going forward.
“You could see it on the mound, that (home run) re-energized her a little bit there,” he said. “I’m hoping she’s coming around, getting back in the groove and we’ll get some good swings out of her.”
Huntington North grabbed a 3-2 lead in the top of the fifth thanks to a pair of fielding errors, but then Hart hit her team-leading third home run of the season moments later.
Kennedy hit an RBI double in the sixth to get the Vikings back within one, 5-4, and they had two more chances to plate the tying run in the seventh but were thrown out on the base paths.
Mackenzi Cannici hit a single to right field with one out, and was thrown out by JCHS catcher Catherine Dunn trying to steal second. Then after Burke reached on an error, she was caught with too much of a secondary lead and Dunn picked her off as well.