May 19, 2009

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The Paper photo by Lori Poteet
North Montgomery junior Trisha Dillon scores an early run on Crawfordsville catcher Elizabeth Zachary in Monday’s county game.
Softball

Monday

At Crawfordsville

Crawfordsville 6, North Montgomery 3

North Montgomery 030 000 0 - 3 6 1

Crawfordsville 000 240 X - 6 11 2

WP: Stormy Staton C. LP: Tricia Dillon NM

North Montgomery runs scored: Brittany Asbury, Kacie Nice, Tricia Dillon

Crawfordsville runs scored: Marissa French, Elizabeth Zachary, Kylie Justus, Sandy Williams, Sydney Brock, Staton

North Montgomery RBI: Erica Lingen, Bailey Carpenter, Sami Byrd

Crawfordsville RBI: Brock 2, Ariel Hinton, Justus, Jessica Pursell, Emily Shirar

North Montgomery hits: Alli Thompson, Shelby Snellenbarger, Katie McIntyre, Sami Byrd, Asbury, Carpenter

Crawfordsville hits: Staton 2, Chelsea Day, French, Zachary, Justus, Williams, Brock, Pursell, Shirar, Hinton

2B: Hinton C

Stolen bases: North Montgomery 0, Crawfordsville 1 (French)

Records: Crawfordsville 18-3 (12-1 SAC), North Montgomery 3-15 (2-9 SAC)


Reprinted courtesy of:
The Paper of Montgomery County
www.thepaper24-7.com


By Bob Cox
bcox@thepaper24-7.com

Fittingly enough, the Athenians' two seniors led them to at least a share of the Sagamore Athletic Conference softball championship on Monday's Senior Night.

Trailing by three runs early, senior Elizabeth Zachary started Crawfordsville's offensive rally and senior pitcher Stormy Staton shut down county- and conference rival North Montgomery late.

They helped the Athenians earn a come-from-behind 6-3 victory at Crawfordsville and clinch at least a share of the conference title.

Crawfordsville (18-3, 12-1 SAC) can now win its second-straight outright conference title tonight with a sweep of the Chargers or a Lebanon loss to conference rival Southmont.

If the Chargers win tonight and Southmont defeats Lebanon, the Athenians and Tigers would be co-champions.

"We won at least a share of the conference tonight," Crawfordsville coach Brian Norris said. "But we don't want to share it. We want to win it outright so Tuesday's game is big for us. North played great tonight and we are expecting a dogfight on Tuesday up at their place."

With the Chargers leading 3-0 going into the fourth inning, it was Zachary's lead-off hit that started the Athenians' comeback.

Zachary would go on to score Crawfordsville's first run on the RBI single by junior Jessica Pursell.

"Elizabeth seemed to get us going with her hit," Norris said. "She came up big for us tonight."

Then in the fourth inning and Crawfordsville behind 3-2, Zachary came up key again.

She executed a sacrifice bunt with two strikes that eventually allowed the Athenians to score four runs in the inning.

Staton, who allowed three Charger runs in the second inning, shut out the Chargers the rest of the game. She seemed to get stronger as the game went along.

In fact, North Montgomery only had three base runners in the last five innings.

"Stormy didn't pitch that great tonight," Norris said. "But she was in control of the game. North never did really hit the ball hard tonight but they had some that fell in the holes."

The first three innings belonged to North Montgomery pitcher Kacie Nice.

The junior limited Crawfordsville to just three hits as she shut down the Athenians' offense.

Even though her pitcher was having a good performance, North Montgomery coach Julie Hodges elected to lift her starter for junior Tricia Dillon.

Hodges said she was following the gameplan she had developed before the game.

"We had decided that Kacie would throw three innings before the game," Hodges said. "Crawfordsville is a good hitting team and we didn't want their hitters to see the same pitcher three or four times."

But the plan didn't go well for the Chargers.

Dillon took the loss by allowing all six Athenian runs on eight hits in three innings.

Crawfordsville took the lead for good when the Athenians scored four fifth-inning runs on three hits and two walks.

Crawfordsville and North Montgomery meet again at 5 p.m. today.