Eagles Win Two In Softball

From the Capital-Journal
SILVER LAKE — It wasn’t like Allison Christy simply didn’t have her best stuff in the pitcher’s circle Thursday.
    Through three innings, the Silver Lake hurler had only given up two hits to visiting Rossville. Granted one was a solo home run to Lora Shinn and the other was an RBI single to Britnee Zemek that helped the Bulldawgs to a 3-0 lead, but it wasn’t like she was getting rocked.
Still, Christy wasn’t happy.
    “I was upset I didn’t pitch very well,” Christy said. “I didn’t like it.”
Christy channeled those frustrations and helped Silver Lake win with her bat instead. The Eagle senior capped a five-run fourth inning with a booming three-run home run, fueling a 6-3 win that gave Silver Lake a sweep of the War on 24 showdown.
    “That felt very good,” Christy said of the shot to left-center that broke a 3-3 tie.
Silver Lake won the first game 1-0 behind a dominating performance from pitcher Megan Deiter. The senior allowed just two hits — singles in the fifth and seventh — and struck out a whopping 16.
She then came on in relief of Christy in the second game and struck out 10 in just four innings, holding the Bulldawgs hitless after their three-run third.
    Of the 36 hitters Deiter faced, she struck out 26 of them — including the side three times — and walked just one.
    “My curve, my screw and my rise were all working really well for me,” Deiter said. “They couldn’t catch up to my rise ball. I just have to push myself because we’ve got some good teams we’re seeing now and I have to focus and hit my spots and make sure my pitches are moving.”
Rossville pitchers Taylor Kirk and Amanda Hill only gave up six hits in the two games and combined for 14 strikeouts, but saw bouts of wildness prove costly. Hill walked seven in the second game, including four in the fourth inning that set up Silver Lake’s come-from-behind win.
The Eagles only had one hit in their five-run inning, Christy’s homer, but four walks and two wild pitches led to a pair of runs that tied the game before Kirk came in a served up Christy’s homer.
“We definitely did not win the freebie war, we gave that part of it away,” Rossville coach Curt Brecheisen said. “We’ve had a game or two here and there where we’ve struggled, but we’ve come back strong the next game. We didn’t do that tonight.”
    Madison Wegner had Silver Lake’s only two hits in the first game and the Eagles’ lone run off Kirk came on Deiter’s sacrifice fly in the fourth. The Eagles got a solo home run from Kennedy Hamilton in the third inning of the second game after Rossville scored three times in the top half of the inning on Shinn’s homer, Zemek’s RBI single and Taylor Brecheisen’s RBI groundout.

SILVER LAKE 1-6, ROSSVILLE 0-3

Rossville       000 000 0 — 0 2 0
Silver Lake    000 100 x — 1 2 0

Kirk and L. Shinn. Deiter and Wegner. W — Deiter. L — Kirk.

Second game
Rossville       003 000 0 — 3 2 1
Silver Lake    001 500 x — 6 4 1

A. Hill, Kirk (4) and L. Shinn. Christy, Deiter (4) and Womack. W — Deiter. L — A. Hill. 2B — Silver Lake: Wegner. HR — Rossville: L. Shinn; Silver Lake: Hamilton, Christy.
Records — Rossville, 11-3; Silver Lake, 12-2.