Storm's upset bid falls short vs. Fillies
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MANLIUS – For three innings, it looked like the Bureau Valley Storm would hand the Morrison Fillies their first TRAC-8 softball loss in a long time Tuesday afternoon.
But some shaky defense allowed the Fillies to take a 4-3 lead in the top of the fifth and extend it to 6-3 in the seventh, as the Storm was unable to do any further damage against Morrison’s hard-throwing Amanda Smith, who notched the win. The Mustangs improve to 17-7 (8-0) while the Storm fall to 7-14 (2-6).
“I’m very proud of the girls’ effort,” BV coach Brian Humphrey said. “Morrison is the class of our conference. There’s a reason that they haven’t lost a conference game in four or five years. To jump on top was very nice, but in the back of my mind, I knew that three wasn’t going to be enough. I knew that we needed to get a few more.”
The Storm took advantage of some early wildness by Morrison starter Christie Wiersema. Down 1-0 with one out in the bottom of the first, Rachel Hix and Sam Shepard drew walks. They advanced to third and second on stolen bases. Hix scored on
Rikki Kessler’s single, and Shepard came home on a wild pitch to put the Storm ahead.
Kessler stole second and advanced to third as Shepard came home. Kessler then scored on a Brooke Reinbeck ground out to put the Storm up 3-1. Wiersema struck out Marie Brokaw to end the inning without further damage.
The pitchers controlled the game through the middle innings, with the lone Morrison run coming in the fourth on a pair of two-out errors.
With the Storm offense struggling, Morrison rallied in the top of the fifth. After a lead-off hit, the Fillies loaded the bases with no one out on a pair of fielding miscues by Storm shortstop Ali Brokaw. Brokaw redeemed herself as she fielded a pair of grounders on consecutive batters to get the force-out at home and prevent the runners from scoring. But, Keisha Hodge’s two-out single plated a pair to give the Fillies a 4-3 lead.
The Storm was unable to break through against Morrison reliever Amanda Smith, who allowed only one hit in her three innings of work, a sixth inning single up the middle by Brooke Reinbeck.
The Fillies plated a pair of insurance runs in the top of the seventh as the Storm went down quietly to end the game.
“I’m very pleased with the effort,” he said. “I love to have a close game like this because it gives the girls confidence. I told them, ‘When we play our game, we can play with anybody.’ It’s a good confidence builder. With regionals less than two weeks away, we need to start having games like this – good ball games and good efforts to get ready.”
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