The Huntington Devilettes staged a dramatic late inning rally to take Game 1 of their best of three series with the Little Cypress-Mauriceville Lady Bears. Huntington scored six runs after two were out in the sixth inning to come from behind and win 9-4 Thursday night in Kirbyville.
Somewhat overshadowed by the Devilettes putting nine runs on the board was the pitching performance of Raegyn Parrish. After giving up a leadoff single to Madison Murdock in the first inning Parrish did not yield another hit the rest of the game. An error led to a run in the third and Parrish’s control caused her problems in the fourth inning.
Little Cypress-Mauriceville was nursing a 4-3 advantage in the top of the sixth. Lady Bears’ starting pitcher Brianna Frenzel was tagged for two Texas League singles to left field before issuing her second walk of the game to load the bases with no outs.
Jenna James replaced Frenzel in the circle and struck out the next Huntington batter. She then got a popup to herself for the second out. The next two Devillettes hit grounders to shortstop neither of which could be fielded cleanly resulting in the tying and go ahead runs scoring. Another Texas League single to center and a triple down the right field line drove in two more runs apiece to make the score 9-4. James got a strikeout to finally stop the bleeding.
The Lady Bears scored in the third when Joanna Henry reached on a two-base throwing error by the Devillettes third base person. Henry went to third on a groundout by Murdock, and she scored on a wild pitch by Parrish to make the score 2-1 in favor of Huntington.
In the fourth inning the Lady Bears scored three runs and never got the ball out of the infield. Frenzel started the inning with a walk and was pinch run for by Kaitlyn Huff. With one out Ashley Short was hit by a pitch. Olivia Leavings walked to load the bases and Emily Landry ran for her.
Jenna James battled to get the count full and then walked to drive-in the tying run. Jonee’ Villanueva pinch hit and was hit on the first pitch to bring in a run to give LC-M a 3-2 lead. Henry hit a grounder to second on which Huntington tried to get a force at the plate, but Landry raced home just beating the throw to make the score 4-2 in favor of the Lady Bears. Parrish retired the next two batters to end the inning with no further damage.
Huntington started its comeback with a run in the fifth. The first two Devilettes reached on hits before Frenzel got two outs on a strikeout and a force out at third that she made a nice play in fielding. Amber Kirkland singled to left to bring home the third Huntington run and set the stage for the big rally by the Devilettes in the next inning.
Game 2 of the series is scheduled for Saturday at 12 Noon in Jasper. If the Lady Bears can win that game a third game would follow also in Jasper.
-Dan Perrine, KOGT-
HHS 2 0 0 0 1 6 0- 9
LCM 0 0 1 3 0 0 0- 4
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