Long balls lead Hawks to win
Gila Ridge’s Tinley Schmidgall goes yard twice to help Hawks beat Kings in high-scoring affair
The Gila Ridge softball team started slow on Tuesday night, but the Hawks were able to overcome an early five-run deficit to beat Kofa for the second time this week.
The Hawks rallied in the later innings with an impressive offensive display to pull away with a 14-10 victory.
Even with that final result, the Kings (1-3 AIA) led 5-0 early in the game, but a couple of errors extended innings and the bat of Tinley Schmidgall helped Gila Ridge back into the game.
Schmidgall led off two different innings with solo home runs to lead the Hawks’ (4-2 AIA) comeback effort. She finished 2-for-4 with two RBIs and three runs.
GR: 4-2 AIA KHS: 1-3 AIA
“We talk about being fighters, and we talk about being in a fight,” Gila Ridge coach Jaime McGalliard said. “It’s not the first punch or the people that can throw their own punches. It’s the people who can withstand a punch. They were able to land a couple of punches early, and we took a few, and then we were able to throw a few of our own and string a few together.”
Both teams had players hitting up and down their lineups with 33 hits in the game. That pace didn’t really start until the bottom of the third inning when the Kings, already leading 1-0, strung together five hits in the inning, highlighted by a two-run RBI double from Sara Alvarez to pull ahead 5-0.
Schmidgall led off the top of the fourth with a solo shot to center field on the first pitch that she saw to help the Hawks wake up. Gila Ridge tallied six hits in that half inning to tie the game at 6, while aggressive base running forced the Kings into a couple of errors to extend plays.
“When the errors start happening, that’s always going to go against you,” Kofa coach Stephanie