With playoff position on the line, Atlee softball wins a wild 21-14 game over Clover Hill
It began innocently enough.
Before long, though, things got wild.
How wild? you ask.
Thirty-five total runs, 34 hits, 17 errors, 300 pitches, and five lead changes wild.
All occurred in seven exhausting innings, which took three hours, six minutes to play and ended, at very long last, with visiting Atlee claiming a 21-14 victory over Clover Hill on Monday afternoon and into the evening.
“Both teams came in looking at their playoff positions,” said Raiders’ coach Eric Kuester, whose squad improved to 10-7.
“We needed the win to guarantee that we’d be in the (Region 4B) playoffs. I really respect the fact that we came out and battled. We started the game with an offensive mindset, which actually set us back a little bit on defense.
“Towards the end, we went back to our traditional defense. We played better when we did that. Unfortunately, we put a lot of pressure on our freshman pitcher (Abigail Moeckl, who threw 143 pitches), but, as she’s done all year, she delivered.
“At the end of the day, I can’t say enough about the great four seasons our two seniors (third baseman Cam Metts and catcher Shannon McKeever) have had. They’re four-year starters, four-year contributors, four-year all-region, and they culminate that with a great win today.”
The Cavaliers, 10-6-1 and winners of seven of their last 10 games, went up 2-0 after on inning when Bri Miller’s double scored Kristyn Niles and Miller scored on an error.
Atlee responded with four runs in the top of the second on three hits, including McKeever’s double which drove in Alice Rabin and Metts.
Undaunted, the Cavaliers went up 7-4 with five runs in the second on Paige Marshall’s bases-loaded double scoring Alexis Rothschild, K.K. Wright, and Niles followed in short order by Paige Martin’s double scoring Marshall and Miller.
Natalie Sponaugle’s run in the top of the third cut Atlee’s deficit to 7-5, and after the Raiders shut out Clover Hill in the bottom of the inning, Metts, Karsen Harrell, and Chloe Elswick crossed the plate in the top of the fourth to put the visitors up 8-7.
Resilient as ever, Clover Hill added two runs in the home half of the fourth when Miller’s single to right scored Marshall and Rothschild’s shot up the middle scored Mina Etebari, a courtesy runner for Miller.
As the game moved into its third hour and the sunbaked field gave way to long shadows created as the sun descended beneath the tree line on the western side of campus, the Raiders put up a run in the fifth (Landry May) and four in the sixth (Metts, Sophie Goodloe, Leah Austin, and Rabin) to take a 13-9 lead into the bottom of the sixth.
“It’s hard to play a game like this,” Metts said. “You just have to push through. You keep going. Anything can happen. Keep your head high.”
Still competing, Clover Hill closed its gap to 13-12 after six when Rothschild stroked a single to right scoring Etebari and Olivia Kelly and scored herself when Wright beat out an infield hit.
The Raiders’ 8-run seventh proved Clover Hill’s undoing.
The Cavaliers added two more runs in the bottom of the inning, but they were too few, too late.
“These girls will tell you that they play better when they be loose and have fun,” Kuester said. “They actually get tired of us (the coaches) in the dugout complaining when they make mistakes. Their mentality is: OK, we made a mistake. We’ll make up for it. Leave us alone.”
He chuckled as Metts and McKeever, who were standing nearby, nodded in agreement.
“They have the mentality that they’re never really out of the game,” Kuester continued. “At the end of the day, we put ourselves in a hole. We dug ourselves out of a hole, and we ended up putting 21 runs on the board.”
Clover Hill recorded 16 hits, including two doubles by Marshall, one each by Miller and Martin, and Wright’s triple.
Wright went 3-for-5, Marshall 3-for-5 with three RBI, Miller 3-for-4, Martin 2-for-4 with 3 RBI, and Rothschild 2-for-5 with three RBI.
The Raiders hit safely 18 times. McKeever hit two doubles, Sponaugle added another, and Austin and Metts contributed triples.
They stole seven bases and committed six errors.
Sponaugle went 3-for-4 with four runs and three RBI.
Metts’s ledger read 3-for-5 with four runs and three RBI. Her final hit was the 100th of her career.
“I was just hitting the ball,” Metts said. “I was told it was the hundredth hit. I wasn’t counting. Just doing my thing.”
The Raiders have now won seven of their last nine games.
“The more we’ve played together has helped,” McKeever said. “We’re a young team with a lot of freshman starters. Just more time out on the field has made it easier for us.”
Still…
“We need to improve on the errors,” McKeever added. “We made a lot of those tonight. If we keep a cleaner defense, the game will go by quicker and make it easier on our pitcher.”
