Lady Wolves Sweep Defending Conference Champs

LINCOLN — Lincoln swept Valley Springs, 15-5 and 13-3, in the 3A-1 softball doubleheader conference opener for the Lady Wolves Thursday.

Freshman Brinkley Moreton won game one coming off a perfect four inning game when she struck out 14 batters during an 18-0 win at Green Forest on Monday, March 14. Valley Springs junior Aidan Gorton hit a grand slam in the fifth inning. Gorton is hitting .615 in four games with 12 RBIs and two home runs plus an in- the- park home run. Following Gorton’s grand slam Moreton got out of the inning with a strikeout and retired the Lady Tigers in order in the top of the sixth, then ended game one with a walk-off 2-run homer of her own.

“I didn’t hit the whole game, but my team hit behind me so that was really good. They helped and we sort of started racking up hits,” Moreton said.

Lincoln coach Brittany Engel liked the way her team responded to some adversity, coach with a good test for both the team and her young pitcher to overcome a challenge. After giving up a grand slam, Moreton came back and blasted the walk-off home run to have the last say in the game.

“I have to give props to the Valley Springs hitter there. That was a great piece of hitting. She crushed that ball. There’s not much you can do about that one, but, hey, then Brinkley came up and said ‘you know I can do it, too,’ and knocked one over herself to win it for us which was awesome,” Engel said.

Engel said Moreton’s appearance in the lineup as the No. 2 hitter strategically positioned her to be in the right spot to make a play at the right time.

“That was the person we needed to come up to hit a home run to get our head right after having a grand slam hit off of her. She fought back and did what she needed to do. She doesn’t seem like a freshman. She’s got the right head on her. That’s for sure,” Engel said.

Valley Springs coach Steve Williams’ squad rallied in game one trying to engineer a comeback off the grand slam, but Moreton and the Lincoln defense didn’t allow that. Williams was disappointed in the outcome while acknowledging Moreton looked good as pitcher against his team although she issued two walks that set up the grand slam.

“If you can have a highlight I guess that’s the highlight. We’ve got to get better. We won the conference last year. We graduated a couple of kids so we’ve got the nucleus of all those kids back. The one we graduated was a good pitcher and we faced a great pitcher today. We just got to get better. We just got to go back to work and try to figure out ways to improve,” Williams said.

Moreton struck out the next batter and fanned three more to retire the Lady Tigers in order in the sixth. In their half of the inning Lincoln pushed 4 runs across with two outs to end the game with a 15-5 run-rule victory. Ryleigh Landrum’s 2 RBI double increased the margin to 13-5 and Moreton took care of the remaining margin by knocking a walk off 2-run homer out of the ballpark.

Williams rued the two out damage.

“We talk all the time about not giving extra outs. We did that way too much today. We gave them too many extra chances. We had chances to get out of an inning and save some pitches for your pitcher,” Williams said.

Moreton went yard again in game two, this time blasting her first high school grand slam to expand Lincoln’s lead to 10-0 in the third inning. Valley Springs scored a pair of runs on a passed ball, but Lincoln starter Amber Bryant got plenty of run support and induced a fly ball to record the third out in the fifth and uphold the 13- 3 run rule victory for Lincoln.

“I was just trying to make contact because I wasn’t making contact and so I was just trying to hit the ball. I just know I was trying to hit it to the fence, trying to get runners in so we could score and run-rule the team,” Moreton said.

When she got ahold of the pitch she knew it was gone and hopes there’s many more such plays in the future for the Lady Wolves and her.

“When you hit and play as a team and everybody’s performing it’s lot easier to win as opposed to just a couple of people on and the rest just not really on. Everybody was on today which was what we needed in order to beat this team,” Engel said.