McClain’s Lady Tigers, in a Frontier Athletic Conference softball matchup, took down the Hillsboro Lady Indians 9-2 in seven innings on Friday at Mitchell Park in Greenfield.
Cierra Bolender was on the mound for the Lady Tigers and tallied one strikeout over seven innings of work. C. Bolender allowed one walk and relied on the outstanding defense behind her as she allowed only two runs, one earned, for McClain.
Head coach Ed Bolender talked about Cierra’s performance and that of the defense after the game.
“She didn’t have her best stuff today but, she found ways to get outs. The defense played well behind her,” said E. Bolender.
Christine Page took the loss for the Lady Indians as she pitched six innings, struck out two, and allowed all nine runs.
The Lady Tigers put the game out of reach early as they scored three runs in the bottom of the first inning and never looked back. Beckley Smith started things off as she stepped into the box with two outs already on the board and smacked a single to get on first. Kaylee Stevenson followed up with a single of her own and Kaleigh Easter drove in both Stevenson and Smith home with a double in the next at bat. Stevenson scored when Brooklyn Rickman got in on the hit party with a double.
McClain added two runs in the fifth and exploded for four more in the sixth as they pulled away from the Lady Indians.
Hillsboro scored one run in both the third and fifth inning with Riley Moberly scoring both. Moberly scored her first run in the third inning when the Lady Tigers defense committed an error on a play at first base, the second run came after Riley recorded a double to put herself in scoring position and Jordan Moberly drove her in on a single.
Hillsboro head coach Katie Moberly felt like her team played well in the game.
“In general, we were in the game the whole time. We hit the ball but, we weren’t able to get the runs across. They have a good defense that made a couple of nice plays.We were right where we wanted to be going into the sixth inning,” said Katie.
Baseball
On the baseball diamond the Indians gritted out a 5-3 win over a very game Tigers squad in seven innings.
Ethan Humphries took the mound for the Indians and pitched a complete game while allowing only three runs. Humphries struck out four batters and allowed his defense to make plays when hitters inevitably made contact.
“We got a really good start out of ‘E Hump’. He has had a couple of tough luck starts here recently and been the victim of some unearned runs in the past. This is his first win of the season and we are really happy to see him get that win,” said Hillsboro head coach Matt Garman.
Humphries struggled early as he allowed the Tigers to score two runs in the first inning but, followed with six innings of one run baseball. Garrison Banks and John Salyers both got the better of Humphries in the first with a single and a double respectively and both scored in the inning.
Cody Pollock pitched for the Tigers and allowed five runs over his complete game while striking out five.
The Indians scored one run in the first two in the second, and one each in the fifth and sixth innings.
Hillsboro got contributions up and down the lineup as their runs were scored by five separate people.
Reach Ryan Applegate at 937-402-2572, or on Twitter @RCApplegate89.
