Softball sweeps Highland Park
April 25, 2016
Pitching to a Highland Park batter, junior Chelsey Henry strikes out the opponent. At Anneberg Twin Oaks field, the Indians mercy ruled Highland.
Junior Audrey Phillips-Zee leads off after the pitch with a broken arm from the previous game.
Pitcing to a Highland Park batter, junior Chelsey Henry strikes out the opponent. At Anneberg Twin Oaks field, the Indians mercy ruled Highland.
The Manhattan High softball team was able to bounce back from getting swept by Washburn Rural with a dominating effort against Highland Park on April 19. The Lady Indians never trailed, giving up a total of three runs. They won the first game 19-0 in three innings, and the second game 18-3, also in three innings.
In the first game, Manhattan was led by sophomore pitcher Anna Batt. In her three perfect innings of work, she faced only nine batters, striking out seven.
“All my pitches were working okay,” Batt said. “And [the umpire] wasn’t calling a lot of variations. It was just a good pitching night.”
The Lady Indians were just as unstoppable on the offensive side, with nine runs in the first inning alone, and 10 coming in the second.
“Our girls did a great job adjusting to a little bit slower speed,” head coach Monty Enright said. “[They] were patient at the plate, and then we ran the bases really well. Pretty much everything you’d want to do offensively, we were able to do.
With such a commanding lead, Enright was able to take advantage of the Junior Varsity off day. Three juniors and one freshman were able to play their first Varsity game of the season.
“I think it’s always exciting to get some of your JV players in,” Enright said. “You hope that maybe they’ll get in, you know, the games will go well and you can, and today was. I got a bonus of both worlds today. I got to win fairly comfortable, and I got to see my JV kids get in there.”
The second game was more of the same for Manhattan. The Lady Indians scored seven runs in the first inning, and added on 11 in the second. They left the bases loaded in the second when one of the runners made a baserunning mistake.
“One of our runners took off too quick,” Enright said. “If you leave too early, then the umpire just calls you out. [The runner was] trying to read a jump, and just went to early.”
Defensively for Manhattan, junior Chelsey Henry was able to pitch two innings of shutout softball before running into some trouble in the third. Henry walked the first two batters, and allowed three runs, before striking out Highland Park junior Susana Arreola to end the game.
With the wins, the Lady Indians improved to 5-5 on the season.
