EDWARDSVILLE - The Edwardsville High School softball team held a 5-1 lead going into the sixth inning of their season opener Tuesday afternoon, but Freeburg took advantage of rare defensive miscues to score nine times in the inning, going on to defeat the Tigers 10-6 at the Edwardsville Sports Complex.
The Midgets scored six times in the inning before the first out, then added on a three-run homer by Lindsey Muskopf to climax the explosion.
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The Tigers, behind the strong pitching of starter Ryleigh Owens, had taken a 5-1 lead going into the sixth. It was a very uncharacteristic inning defensively for Edwardsville, and it eventually cost the Tigers the game.
"No, and that's what I told them," said Edwardsville head coach Lori Blade. "I apologized to our two pitchers, because we have got to be better defensively behind those kids. But that one bad inning, it was just a domino effect of an error and a couple of hits, then another error and a couple of hits and then a non-coverage. And that just opens up the floodgate and that's exactly what happened. And then, they hit a couple of hard there at the end. You know what? Our kids threw well; that's a good team. And we had our opportunities and I thought we hit the ball pretty good for the most part, our pitch selection was good and we left some kids on. But you can't give up 10 runs against good teams and expect to win. So, that was a big part of it."
Owens had pitched a very strong game through the first five innings, allowing one run on four hits and striking out eight before the fateful sixth inning, facing five batters before Avery Hamilton took over in the circle in relief of Owens.
"And then, I may have pulled the trigger a little bit too quick; I don't know, it's early and we'll see," Blade said. "But she threw really well until the one inning, then hit a couple of kids and we didn't make plays. And then, that just opened it up. So that's on me, but we have got to be better defensively. That's the two questions coming in, is whether or not we're going to hit at key times and our defense behind our pitching, so that was glaring today. That one bad inning was our downfall today."
Blade hopes that the sixth inning collapse will serve as a wake-up call for her team early on in the season.
"Hopefully," Blade said. "But you've got to want to dig in and compete. So that's what I need to see. I'm not just going to say that, because how they bounce back will be big for this, but I will say after Freeburg scored early on an error, that we bounced right back and scored four, and that's what I expect our kids to do all the time. And they did it both times, but we just dug ourselves too big a hole in that one inning."
Owens struck out the side after allowing a lead-off single, and in the Midgets' second with one out, Samantha Roulanaitis walked and stole second, went to third on a ground out and scored when Abby Benedick reached on an error by the second baseman to put Freeburg up 1-0. The Tigers bounced back in the bottom of the inning, starting with a one-out double by Jillian Lane, who went to third on a ground out by Charlie Hayes, and scored when the throw by the first baseman got away to tie the game 1-1. Zoie Boyd then singled and scored on a double by Hamilton, then Owens helped herself with an RBI single, scoring Hamilton to make it 3-1 Edwardsville after two.
Edwardsville extended its lead in the fourth, with back-to-back singles and stolen bases by Hamilton and Owens, with both coming in on a Sydney Lawrence single to make it 5-1 for the Tigers. Owens was pitching very well, allowing two hits and three baserunners in the third through fifth inning, fanning four along the way as Edwardsville held its 5-1 lead.
The fateful sixth inning started when Muskopf was hit by a pitch, then scored on a Lizzy Ludwig double to make it 5-2. Nicole Edmiaston then singled and stole second, with Ludwig scoring on a wild pitch, Edmiaston going to third on the play. Roulanaitis was hit by a pitch, after which Hamilton was summoned from third base to pitch. Maddy Schwemmer immediately doubled home a run to make it 5-4, with Roulanaitis going to third, and both runners scored on a Benedick double to put the Midgets ahead 6-5. After a Stella Lybarger sacrifice, Maleah Blomenkamp reached on an error, scoring Benedick. Bailey Stambaugh then singled Blomenkamp to third, and Muskopf hit a 1-0 pitch over the fence in left-center field for a three-run homer to make the score 10-5.
The Tigers fought back with two outs in the bottom of the sixth, with Lawrence reaching on an error, then Lexie Griffin singled Lawrence to second with Emily Wolff, playing in her first-ever varsity game after spending the last two seasons out due to injury, singling home Lawrence and going to second on an error. From there, Edmiaston and Ludwig shut down the Tigers as the Midgets went on to win 10-6.
Freeburg starts off the new season 1-0, while Edwardsville starts off 0-1 and hosts a cluster on Saturday morning, starting with the Tigers meeting Rock Island at 10 a.m., then Marquette Catholic playing the Rocks at 11:30 a.m. with a possible meeting between the Tigers and Explorers right after the Rock Island-Marquette match-up.
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
