PREP SOFTBALL: Strikeout leads to winning tally as Ritenour edges IWA
Ellege fans then circles bases to give Kern, Huskies the win
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| Damon Bell photo - Incarnate Word Academy catcher Kaitlyn Johnson applies the tag to Ritenour's Elizabeth Ridenhour during the sixth inning of Ritenour's 1-0 home win Tuesday. Ridenhour was called out on the play as the tail end of a double play to end the inning. |
t was getting late in Tuesday's home game with Incarnate Word Academy and something just had to give for either the host Ritenour Huskies softball team or its opponent.
Lucky for Ritenour, outfielder Kelsey Ellege turned a negative into a positive in helping the Huskies tot he 1-0 win.
With one out in the bottom of the sixth inning, Ellege struck out on a Briana Puni rise ball. Luckily for her, however, the ball bounded off IWA catcher Kaitlyn Johnson's glove and to the backstop to allow Ellege to reach first base on the dropped third strike
From there, Ellege later came around to score the game's only run when a ground ball off the bat of Kayla Martin squeezed past IWA shortstop Katelyn Moeller and into the outfield allowing Ellege to score form second base to give the Huskies the 1-0 win.
“I actually didn't mean to do that,” said Ellege of swinging at the high pitch that allowed her to reach base. “This has got to be the first time I've scored a run off a strike out. When that grounder went through I was gone. That's like my normal thing, to just keep going and it turned out all right.'
With the lead in hand, Ritenour (5-6) turned to starting pitcher Melissa Kern to close the door and she did that in the top of the seventh inning by inducing a pop out, a strikeout and a ground out to earn the win.
In all, Kern and the Huskies didn't allow an IWA runner past second base during the game as she allowed just two hits and one walk while striking out six Red Knights' hitters.
“I call her (Kern) my ace, Ritenour coach Jennifer Gaines said. “She goes out there and she pitches bullets, I call them heaters.”
Gaines, for one, could tell that the lack of an offense might have been taking it's toll on Kern, who in turn took her frustrations out on IWA's offense.
“She just keeps it inside when she might be angry,” Gaines said. “But she won't express it. The ball just gets in there quicker the angrier she gets.”
Kern's work was so good, it made the other team sit up and take notice. But for as much as Kern did to the IWA offense, the team's coach was unhappy with her girls' inability to change the situation.
“We knew we weren't hitting as a team today,” IWA coach Amy Thompson said. “That was what really held us back. We knew that we were a little off balance with her (Kern) throwing some inside pitches and us not adjusting to them.”
While she did a great job keeping the IWA offense down, Kern had good reason to be uneasy about her team's offensive performance. That's because Ritenour stranded nine runners and had real chances to score in the first, second, third and fifth innings but failed to produce the timely hit in each instance.
“If we could play offense as well as we do defense, I know we'd have a much better record than we do right now,” Gaines said. “It gets frustrating at times.”
Puni suffered the loss in relief of starting pitcher Danielle Whitehead for IWA (7-8). She went two innings and allowed the one run on one hit while striking out six and walking three batters.
