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Royals feel ‘fortunate’ after win
Updated: May 3, 2011 10:02PM
Hang with ’em.
That’s what Aurora Central’s softball team did for five innings Tuesday in the mist in its Suburban Christian Conference makeup game with neighborhood rival Rosary.
The score was tied 2-2 and junior Sarah Ryan, who had relieved starter Taylor Lavoy after two innings, was matching Royals’ starter Tara Pfeiffer pitch for pitch.
“Then the wheels came off,” said first-year Chargers’ coach Jim Hallahan, referring to a disastrous sixth inning where the Royals put up six runs, five of them unearned, on the way to an eventual 9-4 victory.
“It’s too bad because it’s been awhile since our bats came alive like that,” continued Hallahan, noting his team’s seven hits off winning pitcher Tara Pfeiffer.
“She’s got some movement on her pitches but we started hitting with authority and the girls were aggressive at the plate. While I was happy with that, we had the inning where the errors hurt us and that’s kinda been the story of our season.”
It drops the Chargers to 3-9 overall and 2-5 in the league, while Rosary climbs to 9-7 and 6-3.
“Fortunate,” Rosary coach John Kazmierczak said, summing up his feelings after his team left five runners stranded in the first two innings and eight for the game before finally breaking through with the big inning.
“We’ve been doing that the last two or three games. Last Friday in our loss at St. Francis we left something like eight runners on.”
The decisive inning started innocuously enough with a one-out single by catcher Danielle Reder. She was then erased on a forceout on a grounder by Pfeiffer. Maddie Merritt followed with her second bunt single of the game and leadoff batter Brenda Rocha reached on another bunt single to load the bases.
Mackenzie Astling then flared an RBI single just over the head of shortstop Sydney Edwards into left field where the ball was misplayed allowing another two runs to score.
Ali Keenum reached on an infield error, Chelsey Frieders singled Astling home and then she and Keenum scored on another outfield error on a fly ball off the bat of Ariana Stone.
“Mac (Astling), the last three games has been starting to hit the ball well,” Kazmierczak said. “Danielle Reder, Chelsey Frieders and Stone have been, too.”
Rocha, Frieders, Reder and Merritt all finished with two hits in the game. Lavoy and Edwards had two hits each for the Chargers, who answered with two runs in the bottom of the sixth but could add no more in the seventh.
Third-inning RBI singles from catcher Katie Callahan, who gunned down two runners early in the game, and Edwards allowed the home team to take a 2-1 lead.
Frieders had staked Pfeiffer (3 strikeouts, 1 walk) to a 1-0 edge with an RBI single in the first. The Royals tied it in the fourth when Pfeiffer walked, stole second and went to third on a wild pitch and came home on an infield error.
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