SOFTBALL

The HU softball team picked up their second straight sweep by handing the visiting Taylor Trojans (17-16, 14-8) two losses, 6-5, 13-5, Saturday afternoon. The wins also avenge Taylor’s sweep of the Foresters last month.

Huntington has won nine of their last 12 games to move to 12-21 overall which includes a 10-12 CL record. Ehler’s squad is currently fifth in the league standings.

Game one extended to ten innings before the Foresters finally found a way to get the job done. The frame started with a runner on second, compliments of the international tie-breaker rule, with Taylor capitalizing on it for a 5-4 lead after their at-bat.

The Foresters had the same setup to start the bottom of the frame and after a dropped third strike that allowed Jenessa Hasty to reach base, Breanna Hines found a gap in right to knot things up at 5-5. Three straight walks later, the score was tied and then a passed ball allowed Courtney Mason, who was the first to draw a base on balls, to dash home for a unique walk-off finish.

Mason also doubled in a pair of runs in the sixth with a rocket to right center while Mackenzie Walker, who scored the first run of the tenth, knocked in the tying run in the seventh with an RBI-single to send the game to extra innings.

Both teams finished with 13 hits with Hines accounting for four and Kiera Stacy posting three.

After MacKyndsea Burke tossed the first 3.2 innings, Adelyn Harsh went the next 6.1 to earn the win on the mound. She never issued a walk and struck out two while giving up seven hits and two runs.

After the marathon meeting between the two squads in game one, the Foresters made quick work of the nightcap by run-ruling their visitors in five. It marked the first time the Trojans have been run-ruled this season. Ehler and crew took advantage of two TU errors in the first to score four unearned runs on the way to claiming a lead and never looking back.

Harsh highlighted HU’s first at-bat with a two-run dinger that sailed dead center. The Trojans clawed their way back to pull within one at 4-3 but the bottom of the third saw Walker drive a double into center with bases loaded to plate three more runs and keep the visitors at arm’s length.

Huntington carried their hot bats into the fourth. Abigail Reed kicked things off with a solo shot that took out the center field camera after which Jocelyn Winebrenner and Mason each hammered out run-producing base pokes, Winebrenner’s an RBI-single and Mason’s a three-run double.

Winebrenner went on to abruptly end things in the fifth when she roped a shot into right to drive in Harsh, who had just doubled her way on base.

Stacy and Harsh each finished with three hits and two RBI. Mason added two hits and three RBI while Winebrenner posted two hits and just as many RBI. Reed also logged a pair of hits in HU’s dominant performance.

Karlee Franklin went the distance to earn the win in the circle by giving up nine hits, five runs and a walk while striking out four.

Next up for HU is a trip to Bethel on Tuesday.