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Huntland's Hadley Gardner swings at a pitch during a game Thursday against Moore County High School. Gardner had two hits, an RBI, three runs scored and two stolen bases in the 9-8 win.
Huntland's Hadley Gardner swings at a pitch during a game Thursday against Moore County High School. Gardner had two hits, an RBI, three runs scored and two stolen bases in the 9-8 win.
The Huntland High School Lady Hornets beat the Moore County Raiderettes 9-8 at home Thursday for their fourth win of the season.
The Lady Hornets trailed by as many as five runs early in the district contest before rallying to tie the score in the fourth inning and take the lead in the sixth.
Huntland head softball coach Michael Tipps said his players have shown an ability to handle adversity well this season, and they demonstrated that once more with the comeback win Thursday.
“There’s a little bit of fight in this team. No matter what the score is, we’re going to keep battling to try to get back in the game,” he said. “We got out of a couple of jams there. We put some balls in play. It wasn’t big hits, it wasn’t balls mashed off the fence, but they were productive hits to get us in the lead.”
The Raiderettes did a majority of their scoring in the opening inning as they put up five runs in the top of the first.
The Lady Hornets quickly answered back with four runs scored in the bottom of the first as Hadley Gardner hit an RBI single, Bella Smith scored off of an error on a ball hit by Jocy May and Camerin Davis hit a two-run single to make it a 5-4 game early.
The Raiderettes then added two more runs in the top of the second to boost their advantage back up to three runs at 7-4.
The score would be tied in the bottom of the fourth as Smith, May and Blair Finchum each hit RBI singles to bring in one run each and put the overall score at 7-7.
The Raiderettes were able to put a runner at third base with only one out in the fifth and sixth innings, but Huntland pitcher Smith was able to retire the next two batters both times to strand the potential go-ahead run.
The tie would be broken in the bottom of the sixth as Gardner hit a leadoff single, stole second base and scored on a throwing error to give the Lady Hornets their first lead of the day.
The Lady Hornets added another run before the end of the inning as Emily Stewart came through with a two-out RBI single to put the score at 9-7.
The Raiderettes got a few runners on base in the top of the seventh with an RBI groundout scoring one of them and putting the potential tying run at third base with two outs.
However, the next batter for Moore County would also be retired with a groundout as the Lady Hornets held on to win by one.
Smith pitched a complete game for Huntland with four strikeouts, 12 hits, six earned runs and two unearned runs allowed.
With the win, the Lady Hornets improved to 4-2 on the season and 2-0 in district play.
They will next play Friday at home against New Hope High School. First pitch is scheduled for 5 p.m.
