Fundamentally Sound Win For Lady Wolves

LINCOLN — The Huntsville Eagles were treated like starving chickens, finding slim pickings with Lincoln’s stout defense yielding only one run during the Lady Wolves’ 3-1 softball victory on March 16.

On a day when national fast-food icon Dairy Queen celebrated 75 years in business by giving away free ice cream cones, Lincoln was unrelenting on defense behind solid pitching from Ashtyn Rothrock coupled with competent fielding and throwing from both the infield and outfield. Rothrock started and finished strong and pitched her way out of a jam in the middle innings.

“Ashtyn [ Rothrock] pitched well,” said Lincoln coach Karen Coleman.

Rothrock’s very first pitch induced Huntsville’s leadoff hitter into a ground-out. After issuing a walk, she recorded a strikeout, then got the clean-up hitter to fly out to center field. Rothrock struck out the first two batters she faced in the top of the second. The next two Huntsville batters got on board with an error followed by a single up the third base line. Rothrock squelched the threat inducing soft pop up to first on a 1-0 pitch for the third out.

Trouble came middle innings.

On defense we gave up three base hits in a row,” Coleman said, expressing her excitement over what happened once the bases were loaded and a solitary Huntsville run was

in

the walked in.

“Then we got three outs [ with runners on base]. Anytime you can leave the bases loaded it’s big.”

Lincoln responded to the 1-0 deficit by stringing together a few hits in the fourth. Madison Reed, Holly Webb and Tristan Cunningham scored runs with the third run coming on Mallory Pershall’s sacrifice bunt and Rothrock made the 3-1 lead hold up.

In the top of the sixth a line drive was fielded by Lincoln third baseman Holly Webb and Rothrock struck out the next batter to get out of the inning. In the seventh, Rothrock helped her cause by getting her glove underneath a short pop up. Pershall caught a low ball in shallow center. Down to their last at-bat, Huntsville got a runner to first but on a 2-1 pitch, but Rothrock once more induced a short pop up she caught in front of home plate to end the game.

“We played in a tournament at Clarksville over the [previous] weekend and in our last game we hit the fire out of the ball,” Coleman said. “Today, nobody had more than one hit. We had three hits in the fourth and sixth innings. Ashtyn had a double and Jada Corbett had a double. I asked the girls after the game, ‘What’s the one thing we could have done better?’ and they said, ‘We could have hit the ball better.’”

“We played excellent defense. We only had one error. This early in the season that’s pretty good,” Coleman said. “I’m very, very pleased, we haven’t had much practice.”