Lady Trojans survive scare in 7-6 victory over Bethany Christian
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Dale Hubler-dhubler@timesuniononline.com
BOURBON – Tournament wins aren’t always pretty. Bottom line, the postseason is about surviving and advancing. That’s exactly what Triton High School’s softball team did Wednesday night. Hosting the Bethany Christian Lady Bruins in the championship game of Class 1A Sectional 52 at Keyser Field, the Lady Trojans took a 7-1 lead into the seventh inning and held on for a 7-6 victory. Triton’s third-straight sectional title appeared to be in the bag with Bethany Christian down to just three outs. The Lady Bruins, however, had other ideas. Danielle Welty and Darienne Maust led off the final inning with hits, followed by two Triton throwing errors. After a lineout, Lena Yeakey and Brooke Reinhardt bookended the second out with RBI singles, trimming the deficit to 7-4 and forcing Triton coach Steve McBride to switch pitchers. Brycelyn Garbison, who scattered six hits and gave up just two earned runs in 6-2/3 innings was replaced by Courtney Jennings, who needed to get just one out for the save. The Lady Trojans committed two more throwing errors, and the Lady Bruins scored two more runs, trimming the deficit to 7-6. Triton got the much-needed third out when catcher Zoee Stephan gunned down Mallory Bontrager at second base on a double-steal. The Lady Bruins scored their final run on the play, but a heads-up play and throw-out by Stephan allowed the Lady Trojans and their fans to celebrate another championship. “You gotta give Bethany Christian some credit, they hung in there, they made it exciting,” said McBride. “I think this is the third game where we finished the game with an out on the bases in a one-run ballgame. That’s kind of unusual. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a team do that. Of course I thought we had the kid out at home, and our catcher comes up and guns it to second. “We got the out,” continued McBride. “It’s survive and advance, and that’s what we did. We’re playing next week. We’re happy about that.” With the win, Triton improved to 20-10 and will host South Central (21-7) Tuesday at 7 p.m. in a one-game regional. Tuesday’s clash is a matchup of last year’s regional final, which Triton won 4-1 at South Central. “We’re at home next week, and we’re gonna have to play better than this,” said McBride. “South Central has won 20 games, and we had a tough game with them last year in the regional. They lost their pitcher (from last year), but we lost ours too. We’re gonna have to play a cleaner game. We can’t make errors like leaving third early, bad throws, we can’t do that stuff. We had some plays where kids just had, really, mental breakdowns. You know, plays that we’ve made all year. I don’t know, maybe they get caught up in the moment ... but we’ve gotta clean that up.” The Lady Bruins, who lost to Triton 11-1 in the regular season finale, saw their campaign end with a 7-8 record. Bethany Christian plated the first run of the game Wednesday, as Welty scored in the second inning. The Lady Trojans responded by scoring two in the bottom of the inning, and later added one run in the fourth, three in the fifth and one in the sixth. Triton’s run in the fourth inning came on a leadoff homer by Lexee Lemler. Heather Stichter hit a double for the Lady Trojans, who pounded out 10 hits in the win. For the Lady Bruins, who had six hits in the loss, Welty led the way with a double, triple and two runs. Jordan Helmuth was charged with the loss in the circle. She gave up 10 hits, four earned runs and a walk in six innings of work.
TRITON 7, BETHANY CHRISTIAN 6 BC 010 000 5 – 6 6 4 Tri 020 131 X – 7 10 4 Bethany Chr. – Jordan Helmuth (L, 6IP, 10H, 7R, 4ER, 1K, 1BB) Triton – Brycelyn Garbison (W, 6-2/3IP, 6H, 5R, 2ER, 3K, 0BB), Courtney Jennings (S, 1/3IP, 0H, 1R, 0ER, 0K, 0BB) 2B – Danielle Welty (BC), Heather Sticther (Tri) 3B – Welty (BC) HR – Lexee Lemler (Tri) Records: Triton 20-10, Bethany Christian 7-8
