Portageville spoils opener for Lady Tribe

Thursday, April 3, 2014
Photo by Mike Buhler, Staff Kennett's Kelsey Washburn swings at a pitch during Monday's softball game against Portageville at Indian Park. [Order this photo] Opening Day did not quite go according to plan for the Kennett Lady Indians on the softball diamond.

The Lady Tribe committed five errors, leading to five unearned runs in a 6-0 loss to the Portageville Lady Bulldogs Monday at Indian Park in a non-conference game for both teams.

With the bases loaded and one out in the top of third inning in a scoreless game, Tiffany's grounder was misplayed, allowing Ellis to score and opening the floodgates for the Lady Bulldogs. The next five batters all reached as the Lady 'Dogs ended the third with a 5-0 lead.

"At the beginning of the season, you're going to have a couple of mistakes," Kennett coach Kevin McCaig said. "We had them Monday and it snowballed in that one inning. If you give a good team like Portageville a chance to score runs, they do what good teams do -- they capitalize on it."

The Lady Tribe's problems began in the bottom of the second inning. Pitcher Shayla Jansson walked, Jacky Lockhert was hit by a pitch and Kelsey Lawrence reached on a fielder's choice to load the bases with nobody out. However, Tiffany retired the next three batters -- two by strikeout -- to get out of the jam.

"We had the bases loaded and nobody out and they were able to get out of that jam," McCaig said. "It got them back up and once we gave them a couple of extra outs, they took advantage of it."

Tiffany dominated on the rubber Monday for Portageville, striking out 15 batters in tossing a two-hit shutout.

"She does a good job of mixing speeds and mixing eye angles," McCaig said. "We went into it with a game plan thinking if we could keep our strikeouts under 10, that we'd give ourselves a chance. We'll get better at that throughout the year hopefully. That's something that we've got to be strong with."

Kennett also struggled in clutch situations, going hitless with runners in scoring position.

"We struck out in some key situations," McCaig said. "You really just want to see somebody get the bat on the ball and maybe score a run to put a little bit of pressure on them."

The errors and lack of offense negated a strong pitching performance by Jansson, who struck out 11 and walked just one in allowing just one earned run over five innings. Madison Pickens finished up by striking out two and allowing just one unearned run over the final two innings.

"We said that pitching would be a strong point," McCaig said. "She went out, located her pitches and pitched really well. She stuck to the game plan for the most part. We've just got to help her out."

Logan Vaughan and Anna Wheeler had Kennett's lone hits.

The Lady Tribe is back on the diamond this afternoon at 4:30 p.m. to host East Carter.

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