ARCANUM – The Arcanum Lady Trojans earned a come from behind 14-13 win in extra innings over the visiting Versailles Lady Tigers in non-conference softball action.
“We don’t quit – there’s always a chance,” said Arcanum coach, Mike Morris. “We just have to get it done in the first few innings, we just can’t be waiting and waiting. I am proud of them. It’s good to be 2-1.”
Trailing 10-1 with Arcanum coming to the plate in the bottom of the fourth, the Lady Trojans chipped away with 4-runs in the bottom of the fourth to trail 10-5 only to have Versailles plate two in the top of the sixth to lead 12-5.
“I was pleased with how well they attacked the pitcher,” said Versailles coach, Mark Voisard. “They were patient, hit the ball hard, we had some long at-bats. We did a lot of the damage in the top part of the area of the batting lineup.”
Arcanum plated 5-runs in the bottom of the sixth to make it a 12-10 game with an inning of regulation play remaining. The Lady Tigers added an insurance run in the top of the seventh to lead 13-10 with Arcanum coming to the plate in the bottom of the inning.
The Lady Trojans pushed three runs across the plate sending the game to extra innings with Arcanum taking advantage of a Mollie Ericksen two out walk-off run scoring single in the bottom of the eighth to give Arcanum the win.
“We’re digging ourselves in holes the first two innings for some reason,” Coach Morris stated. “I don’t know what’s going on but I know we can hit, it just takes us some time. Hopefully we can start keeping it down to one to two runs early and then we can come back but they didn’t quit. We made some mistakes on bases that I thought was going to kill us but the girls came up and hit…everybody participated.”
Arcanum starting pitcher Hannah Kendig open the game and would take a break before Coach Morris sent his junior hurler back to the mound to close out the game and earn the win.
“She came back and she was throwing hard finally,” said Morris. “We’ll get it figured out here. As long as we keep hitting we’re going to be fine. We just have to get our bunts down. We could have lost that game because of bunts but we didn’t. It feels good to be 2-1.”
Versailles’ left handed hitting Lydia Hecht clubbed the game’s lone home run of the night deep over the right field fence.
“That was a nice shot by Lydia,” said Coach Voisard. “She made nice contact, she’s been hitting the ball well.”
“The girls know what they have to do and basically move on from there, get ready for the next game,” Voisard concluded. “We’ll be all right. They showed a lot of heart.”
