GREENVILLE – The Lady Wave dropped an extra-inning 6-5 MVL game to the visiting Vandalia-Butler Lady Aviators Monday night.
“They’re a good group, obviously they’re the favorite now,” Greenville coach Jerrod Newland said following the game. “Extra inning game, bottom line 6-5 Butler.”
Each team committed a single error on the night leading to runs while the Lady Wave continues to struggle in the field making several mental errors that do not show up in the scorebook.
“We don’t make a couple of plays early, we give them four outs one inning and they get 3 runs,” Newland noted. “We don’t make a play and they get another run.”
Butler took advantage of a 2-run homer to lead 2-0 after 2 innings of action.
Greenville bounced back in the bottom of the third with a run-scoring single off the bat of Kylar Arnett. Butler misplayed a Mahayla Cook long drive to left plating 2 Lady Wave runs. Addie Burke knocked a 2 out RBI single to left scoring Cook giving Greenville a 4-2 lead with 3 innings in the book.
“They gave us 3 of the runs out there not making a play and we gave them a couple,” said Newland.
Both teams went down in order in the fourth only to have the Lady Aviators plate 3 runs taking advantage of a Greenville fielding mix up giving the visitors a 5-4 lead.
Savannah Leach led off the bottom of the fifth with a line drive double to center, took third on a groundout, and scored on a Butler wild pitch knotting the score at 5-5 after 5 innings.
The Lady Aviators got a sixth-inning opening single setting up a tailor-made double play from Leach at shortstop. Greenville went down in order in the bottom of the inning sending the game to the seventh tied 5-5.
Butler went down 1-2-3 in the top of the seventh while Greenville was getting back-to-back 2-out singles off the bats of Arnett and Zoey Burns before a groundout to short thwarted the scoring threat.
The Lady Aviators pushed a run across in the top of the eighth to lead 6-5 and Greenville used a Kendall Cromwell 2-out walk and a Haileigh McDermitt single with the runners moving up to second and third only to have a groundout to short give Butler a 1 run extra inning conference win.
“They wanted it more, they played better than us but bottom line we can’t leave kids on base, and the last two innings we get two on and left four on base that last two innings and had a chance to win it,” Coach Newland stated. “Thank goodness we get to play them twice. Disappointing one here today – left one at the field. Not a very sharp game for Lady Wave Softball today.”
The Lady Wave travel to Vandalia, Thursday, April 4th for a MVL game with a 5 p.m. start time.
BOX SCORE
123 456 78 R H E
020 030 01 6 10 1 Butler
004 010 00 5 5 1 Greenville
