Walk-Off Winner!

By Mark Carpenter

People’s Defender

There is nothing more thrilling and exhilarating in the sports world than the walk-off winner, no matter what the sport. The walk-off sends the home team and their fans into a frenzied celebration and the excitement came to Manchester High School on Monday night thanks to senior Kameyl Carter.

Entertaining the Fayetteville Lady Rockets in Southern Hills Athletic Conference action, Monday’s contest was deadlocked at five as the Lady Hounds came to the plate in the bottom of the seventh inning. It took two batters to end the game and send the Manchester faithful home smiling. A double by Emilee Applegate was followed by a Carter blast over the center field fence for a 7-5 Manchester victory.

The Lady Hounds and their powerful bats have had numerous lopsided games this season but Monday was not one of those. The visiting Lady Rockets made things quite difficult from the start, scoring four unearned runs off of Manchester starter Emilee Applegate in the top of the first. The Manchester girls haven’t stared at many deficits this spring but they didn’t panic and began to chip away at the Fayetteville lead, getting one in their half of teh first on an RBI ground out by Emilee Applegate.

The Lady Hounds got one more run back in the bottom of the second when Maggie Roberts doubled to left and came home on a pair of wild pitches. The home team drew within one run in the bottom of the third. Emilee Applegate smacked a double to center and later scored on a base hit by Harley Rideout to make it 4-3.

The Lady Rockets added one to their lead in the top of the fourth but the Lady Hounds matched that with one in the bottom half when a Jenna Campbell two-bagger scored courtesy runner Ashleigh Dunn. The home team finally caught up in the bottom of the sixth. Chloe Freeman led off the frame with an infield hit and eventually came around to score on another run-scoring hit by Campbell.

Reliever Rylie Young retired the Lady Rockets in order in the top of the seventh with a strikeout sandwiched around a pair of ground outs, setting the stage for the bottom of the seventh heroics. Emilee Applegate led off and drove a 3-1 pitch to center for a double, putting the winning run in scoring position. Next up was Carter and the lefty swinging first baseman found a 2-0 pitch to her liking and rocketed it out of the park to dead center for the walk-off winner, her 12th career home run.

The win improved the Lady Hounds to 13-1 on the season, still unbeaten at 9-0 in conference play, one win away from clinching no worse than a tie for the small school title. The loss dropped Fayetteville to 5-4 overall, 3-4 in the SHAC.

Though the outcome was not available at press time, the Lady Hounds faced another tough challenge to their unblemished conference mark on Tuesday afternoon as they traveled north to face the Peebles Lady Indians, Look for a report on that action in the upcoming weekend edition of The People’s Defender.

Fayetteville

400 100 0 —5

Manchester

111 101 2 —7

Fayeteville Hitting (AB-R-H-RBI): Wells 3-1-0-1, Kleemeyer 4-0-0-0, Thompson 4-1-2-0, Polston 3-0-0-0, Waddle 3-1-1-0, Mechlin 2-1-0-0, Carlier 2-1-1-2, Corwin 3-0-0-0, Canfield 2-0-0-0, Team 26-5-4-3.

Extra-Base Hits: Waddle 2B, Thompson 2B

Manchester Hitting (AB-R-H-RBI): Campbell 4-0-2-2, Young 2-1-0-0, E. Applegate 4-2-2-1, Carter 4-1-1-2, Roberts 2-1-1-0, Rideout 2-0-1-1, Freeman 3-1-1-0, Neria 3-0-1-0, J. Applegate 2-0-0-0, Dunn 0-1-0-0, Team 26-7-9-6.

Extra-Base Hits: E. Applegate 2B (2), Roberts 2B, Campbell 2B, Carter HR

Fayetteville Pitching:

Waddle (L) 6 IP, 9 H, 7 R, 5 ER, 5 BB, 6 K

Manchester Pitching:

E. Applegate 4 IP, 3 H, 5 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 2 K

Young (W) 3 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 7 K