Patrick Henry softball dominant in bounce-back performance

It was a thanks-I-needed-that experience if there ever was one.

Losing 4-2 to Region 4B and cross-county rival Hanover before their home crowd this past Friday definitely wasn’t part of the Patrick Henry Patriots’ plan.

Seeing their 10-game winning streak and undefeated season come to an all-too abrupt end wasn’t either.

Neither was the realization that they’d left their A-game back in the locker room and if they’d played any phase of their game with a bit more acuity and a break here and there had fallen their way, the outcome might have been different. 

The issue, though, as Coach Chris Hughes told them, wasn’t what happened that night in Ashland but how they responded to the disappointment.

It took them all of three days to figure things out and respond like the champs they aspire to be.

Late Monday afternoon, they disembarked after their 45-minute bus ride through rush hour traffic to Powhatan and. with bats ablaze and the strong right arm of sophomore pitcher Payton Piercy handcuffing the Indians, claimed a 13-0 victory that eased the pain of that one blemish on their record.

“This was definitely a bounce-back game for us,” Hughes said. “We didn’t play our game Friday. That’s apparent. This is more of what we’re capable of.”

“Tonight, we came out, put a lot of bats on balls, scored a lot of runs, ran the bases well, played solid defense, and pitched amazing.”

Friday, then, was a blessing in disguise, even if the moment stung.

“A hundred percent,” Hughes said. “That was something that we needed. You could see it in the girls tonight. When they came out, they had a different look in their eyes.”

The Patriots (11-1), who battered Powhatan with 13 hits, scored three runs in the first, three more in the second, another in the third, and the coup de grâce, six in the fourth.

Try as they might, there was little the Indians (8-6) could do to stop them.

In the first, Brookelyn Parrish’s bases-loaded bloop single to left field scored Morgan Hughes and Piercy. Shelby Minter followed with a single, also to left, that scored Hanna Six.

The second inning brought more of the same.

After Kameron Piercy flied out to right, Madison Huckstep, who had singled and advanced to second on a wild pitch, raced home from second. 

The Patriots loaded the bases again, and Kelsie Keck delivered a single to center to drive in Hughes and K. Piercy.

It wasn’t just the hitting that allowed the Patriots to score seemingly at will. It was also their controlled-abandon base running that enabled them to play their game at a high-octane pace.

The pattern recurred in each of the Patriots’ big innings.

“We pride ourselves on our base running,” Hughes, the coach, said. “You have to score runs, and to do that, you run the bases aggressively and smart.”

The Patriots pushed across another run in the third. With two outs, K. Piercy stroked a single to right, advanced a base on the throw, and raced home with no hesitation rounding third on Morgan Hughes’s sharp single to right.

“In practice, we work more on consistency and not so much hitting what we call cage bombs,” said Hughes, the coach’s daughter, a senior centerfielder, and a University of Alabama-Birmingham commit. 

“That means we don’t focus on hitting home runs. We hit off the machine at practice almost every day and hit all types of speed and movement. Everybody’s bat really showed up tonight. It was great to see it all come together.”

The Patriots put the game far out of reach with their six-run fourth inning.

By the time the Indians recorded the third out, 10 hitters came to the plate and (in order) Six, Parrish, Brooklyn Blackstone (courtesy runner for Minter), Huckstep, K. Piercy, and Hughes crossed it, the latter three on Payton Piercy’s triple to the leftfield wall.

“Coach Chris told us to take the weekend off,” said Morgan Hughes, who went 3-for-3. “He said, ‘Feel the loss, but don’t let it hang on you.’ Obviously, it happened, it’s over, and we have eight games left in the season.”

Payton Piercy faced just 16 batters in five innings, allowed one hit (Cassidy Moser’s first-inning single), struck out 10, and walked no one. 

Her fastball has been clocked at 63 miles per hour, she said, and that pitch combined with her rise ball and changeup baffled the Indians.

“Friday was rough,” she said. “Tonight, I had a better mindset and tried to stay positive. I worked on my spins over the weekend so they’d be working today. They did, and my defense backed me up very well.”