Lady Indians survive a slugfest

KENNETT, Mo.- The Lady Indians softball team came home Thursday for its season opener and defeated Scott City 10-9 on a seventh-inning walk-off double by Lauren Barton.

The Kennett squad returned to the diamond after two round robin sleepers, winning 19-0 and 27-0.

The team found out quickly they were in a battle of big-time proportions when they faced a very-good Scott City squad that entered the contest at 2-1 with wins against Greenville and Delta, followed by a rough loss to a Anna-Jonesboro, Ark. team 14-0.

Instead of going on the road on a downward spiral, Scott City arrived pitching well and playing fine defense with timely hitting and it was back and forth for the whole game.

After three innings Kennett led 4-3 with a single run in the first and three in the second sending eight batters to the plate with four hits and a walk leaving two on base.

Handley McAtee on the other side for Kennett was pitching very well, and kept her team in the game by scattering four hits over four innings, striking out six, and despite two solo home runs, only faced 17 batters over that span.

In the bottom of the third inning for Kennett facing a relief pitcher Avery Payne, the fifth batter in the lineup, sent a fly ball deep to left field hit so hard it banged off of the fence right to the left fielder holding her to a single which turned out to be huge as the next batter for Kennett, Emma Bodkin, grounded into a 6-4-3 double play ending the inning.

The back and forth volley continued into the fifth inning with McAtee issuing her first walk of the game, including one out to the leadoff hitter and three batters later, three runs scored for Scott City on a two-base error committed by the right fielder, a single followed by a wild pitch and a key, two-out single.

The up and down affair continued in the bottom of the fifth when after a leadoff double by McAtee, the third batter for Kennett, Wilson connected on a belt high pitch and sent it deep over the center field wall near the banners, tying the game at 6 each.

Neither team scored in the sixth, but to start the 7th, the leadoff hitter and the number two hitter for Scott City both reached base for the third time each on the fourth and fifth errors of the game by Kennett. Kennett's coach intentionally walked the number three hitter to load the bases with no outs, trying to set up a force out at every base.

McAtee jammed the next hitter resulting in a pop-up to second and the next batter hit a weak grounder back to her getting the desired force out at home.

But the sixth placed hitter in the lineup for Scott City, who had already homered back in the second inning, doubled off the right field wall, bobbled by the right fielder clearing the bases and giving Scott City a solid 9-6 lead.

McAtee finished off the inning with her 10th strikeout of the game.

She walked off the mound with a six-hit, 10-strikeout, only five earned runs allowed and only one walk trailing by three.

But that is why when you play at home you get last at bats.

After McAtee was retired on a fly-out to center, the heroics for Kennett began. Kynsly McCaig, the number two hitter, one of the heroes of the game, who had singled in the first for an RBI, laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt in the fifth, moving a runner from second base to third, which subsequently led to a two-run blast to tie the game at six by Hadley Wilson.

She then started the winning rally in the 7th with a solid single to center field which was followed by a huge blast by Wilson, her 2nd home run of the game to pull Kennett within one.

Emma Tinnin, the warrior-catcher for the Indians, who had been brilliant behind the plate all game but who had struggled at the plate, stepped up and blasted the tying ninth run of the game, the fifth home run of the game between the two teams, to send the home-team fans standing and cheering.

The next batter, Payne, grounded out to the shortstop and it looked like extra innings loomed.

The tide turned again when the next batter, Bodkin, was hit by a pitch.

Lynnley Patterson the next batter, who had pinch hit in the sixth and struck out, kept the inning alive by reaching safely at first on a dropped throw, moved Bodkin to third on the play and she scored on a solid walk off base hit by Barton.

The final line for Handley McAtee was: Seven innings, six hits, nine runs allowed, only five earned, two walks (one intentional) and 10 strikeouts for the win.

The next game for the Lady Indians (3-0) is at 3 p.m. Friday, March 22, at Potosi.