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Greenville senior Kelly Martin swings at a pitch for Greenville Monday against Vandalia-Butler.
The Lady Wave fell to the Aviators 6-4 in a GWOC North battle.
Submitted Photo
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Lady Wave tripped up by Butler
By George Starks
cnosports@countynewsonline.org
GREENVILLE- In his ten years as head coach at Greenville, Lady Wave softball coach Jerrod Newland has experienced many firsts. This year has been a year of firsts that Newland would like to forget.
The original first of the season came in the season opener when Greenville lost to Wayne. The second of those firsts came Monday at Stebbins Field.
With Vandalia-Butler in for the GWOC North opener, the Lady Aviators were looking for some revenge from a year ago and they found it. Butler dropped a 6-4 loss on Greenville, giving Newland his first ever loss in the North Division.
“This is not the way we wanted to start the North part of our schedule off but the bottom line is the better team won today,” said Newland. “The team that took advantage of opportunities, won and hats off to Butler because Lady Wave softball didn’t play too sharp today.”
Greenville jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first on an RBI triple from Kayla Harshbarger, scoring Emily Beanblossom. Harshbarger would score on sac fly from pitcher Ashley Hanes.
That lead would be short lived however when Butler would get two of its own in the second. The dagger would come in the fifth as the Aviators would put up a three spot to take a 5-2 lead.
“We jumped on them for two quick runs in the first but we gave them extra outs and they took advantage of our mistakes,” said Newland. “In the second inning, we gave them five outs that inning. We boot a ball and then we don’t make a routine play on a pop fly. If we make those plays like we should have, we win this game 4-1. We gave them all the momentum and you can’t give good teams like Vandalia extra outs. Today, it haunted us in the second. They scored three more in the fifth and one of those runs came when a girl scores from first on a two out bloop. Things like that just can‘t happen. I know the kid is fast but we have to pick the ball up and come up throwing. The next thing we knew, it was 5-2 Butler.”
Greenville battled back scoring a run in the fifth and one in the sixth before the Aviators put one more on the board in the seventh.
“We mounted a comeback but we let it slip away,” said Newland. GWOC softball is tough, and today Butler was the better team.”
Greenville played Butler on the road Tuesday, needing a split to stay in contention for the divisional title. |
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