By Mark Carpenter

People’s Defender

There are a lot of Gold Gloves in Johnny Bench’s trophy case and soon there will be one in the trophy case at Manchester High School, the first-ever in softball. Coach Matthias Applegate and his Lady Hounds finished off a perfect 13-0 spring in the Southern Hills Athletic Conference with a convincing 10-1 win on the road at Fairfield on Tuesday, May 9, sewing up only the second gold trophy in school history, the other coming in the 90’s in boys basketball.

To pull off the victory at Fairfield, the formula was the same as it has been all season for the Manchester squad, power and pitching. The Lady Hounds put their “Homer Hat” to good use, clubbing four homers in the win, two by shortstop Jenna Campbell, hitting in the lead off spot in the order, and one apiece from third baseman Emilee Applegate and right fielder Harley Rideout. The two bombs off of Campbell’s bat gave her seven for the spring, making her the team leader for the season.

In the center circle, junior Rylie Young was aces, tossing a complete game five-hitter and striking out a dozen Fairfield hitters.

On Tuesday night, the Manchester offense started early and left little doubt as to how bad these girls wanted that “gold” hardware. In the top of the first, the visitors made a huge statement, scoring four times off of Fairfield starter Katelyn Chambliss. Campbell led off the game with a base hit, then scored on a base hit by Young, who came home when Emilee Applegate reached on an error. A double play turned by the Lady Lions cleared the bases, but Maggue Roberts was hit by a pitch, followed by Rideout’s second homer of the season, scoring Roberts ahead of her and making it 4-0.

The Lady Lions loaded the bases in the bottom of the first on two walks and a hit batsmen, but Young got out of trouble, getting Chammbliss swinging to end the threat.

The Lady Hounds went right back to work in the top of the second. After the first two batters were retired, Campbell went yard to right field to make it 5-0. Young followed with a single to center and she waltzed home when Applegate drove one over the center field fence to give the visitors a quick seven-run advantage.

The Lady Hounds got 0ne more in the top of the fourth on a solo homer to center from Campbell, and the lone Fairfield run came in the bottom half of that same frame, Carly Sanders coming across on a wild pitch.

Manchester added single runs in the fifth and sixth innings. In the fifth, Rideout singled and later came home on a run-scoring base hit by Jaylise Applegate and in their next at-bat, a Maggie Roberts base hit scored Emilee Applegate to make it 10-1.

Young retired the Lady Lions in order in the bottom of the sixth, then allowed the bases to be loaded in the seventh, but again wiggled out of trouble when Fairfield’s Sydney Sanders bounced into a third to catcher fielder’s choice for the second out and a pop up right back to Young off the bat of Faith Miller was the last out in a historic victory for Manchester softball.

The victorious Lady Hounds collected 17 hits in the win, led by Jenna Campbell’s 4 for 4 performance, scoring three times and hammering the pair of homers. Manchester got three-hit efforts from Rylie Young and Harley Rideout with Abby Neria and Emilee Applegate getting two hits apiece.

With a final regular season record of 21-1 and a conference mark of 13-0, the Lady Hounds began Division IV tournament play on Wednesday, May 10, hosting Western Latham in a sectional final contest with a return trip to the district tourney at Rio Grande well in the sights. Look for a full report on that contest in your only local high school sports coverage, The People’s Defender.