Lady Bobcats nip Kirbyville in 22-3A play
Published 8:26 pm Tuesday, March 12, 2019
ORANGEFIELD — Surviving a scare at the end, the Orangefield Lady Bobcats withstood a late Kirbyville surge to topple the Lady Wildcats 4-3 in District 22-4A action at Lady Bobcat Field Tuesday night.
The Lady Bobcats (13-6, 3-1) received a top-notch effort from pitcher Codie Sorge. Sorge scattered eight hits while fanning 11 Lady Wildcats and walking just one.
Kirbyville actually outhit the Lady Bobcats 8-4. Lady Wildcat pitcher Terri Dowden didn’t bring the heat like Sorge, but got the Lady Bobcats to hit into a lot of fly ball outs. She went all six innings, allowing just four hits while striking out just one and walking four.
The Lady Wildcats trailed 4-1 entering the top of the seventh and were down to their last out but put together a pair of hits and scored on back-to-back Lady Bobcat errors to make Orangefield sweat.
The Lady Bobcats scratched in all four of their runs in the bottom of the second inning.
Sorge led things off with a shallow single to centerfield and moved to second off a nice sacrifice bunt by Heather Mineer. Hannah Dupuis gave the Lady Bobcats a 1-0 edge with a RBI single to left centerfield to score Sorge for a 1-0 cushion.
After Ryden Stanfield drew a walk and Olivia Grant was hit by a Dowden pitch, Emma Humplik sent a deep shot to leftfield to the fenceline and the ball was dropped as three runs scooted in for a 4-0 Orangefield lead.
The Lady Wildcats struck for a run in the top of the third inning. Kaylyn Xaystong, who was 3-for-4, had a one-out single to left and swiped second. She scored when Brianna Williams stroked a RBI single to leftfield.
Both pitchers tossed excellent the rest of the way.
However, Kirbyville made a late seventh-inning surge.
After Sorge got her 11th strikeout and then a fly out, the Lady Wildcats got back-to-back singles from Williams and Destiny Rutherford. Larissa Jones then reached on an error at second that scored Williams and Skylar Rutherford reached on an error at the mound as Destiny Rutherford scooted in to score.
With Jones at third, Sorge got out of the jam by getting Emily Stark to ground out.
Humplik and Alyssa Dodd had the other two hits for the Lady Bobcats, who will return to action next Tuesday when they welcome in the Warren Warriors.