By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
Coach Matthias Applegate made the move up to Division VI for this year’s district tournament and their first foray there turned out to be quite an adventure. The #7 seeded Lady Hounds earned a May 12 home game in the district quarterfinals, hosting the Paint Valley Lady Bearcats and fans who were in attendance got their money’s worth with a real slugfest.
Scoring all their runs in the first five innings, the Lady Hounds had their hands full with the #10 seeded Lady Bearcats but managed to hold off a late Paint Valley rally to survive and advance with the razor-thin 12-11 victory.
Paint Valley fired the first attack, putting up three first inning runs off of Manchester starter Ellliana Applegate. The Manchester offense bounced right back in the bottom of the first, scoring three times to tie the game. Addilyn Hunter and Applegate both scored on wild pitches and Mahayla Brown stroked a run-scoring single to even things up.
It just wasn’t her day in the center circle as Applegate struggled again in the second inning, not surviving the frame after giving up three more runs. Coach Applegate turned to sophomore Bayleigh Spires, who would do yeoman’s work in finishing the rest of the contest.
Manchester picked up to more in the bottom of the second when a two-bagger to left by Applegate brought home Kaiya Johnson and a sacrifice fly to center by Brislynn McClanahan brought Applegate home to make it 6-5 Paint Valley.
After the visitors added one to their lead in the top of the third, the Lady Hounds moved back in front with a bottom of the third three-spot. A base hit by Jadelynn Conley scored Hayven Newland and and a Johnson single brought Brielle Inman across. Manchester took an 8-7 advantage when Johnson came home on another wild pitch.
Paint Valley plated one in the top of the fourth to again tie the score but the Lady Hounds went back on top with three of their own in the bottom half. A Brown base hit drove home the first score with a Newland single driving in Jessa Tadlock. The home team took an 11-8 lead when a Conley double scored Newland and then added one more to that advantage in the bottom of the fifth when Applegate doubled and came home on another McClanahan sacrifice fly.
Now up 12-8, it was time for things to get a little tense in the Manchester dugout. Paint Valley got to Spires for a single run in the top of the sixth and after the Lady Hounds went scoreless in their half, a pressure-packed bottom of the seventh arrived.
Single, double, single and the Lady Bearcats sliced the deficit to 12-10 and another two-base hit scored another run and left runners at second and third with just one out. Spires then proved her worth, buckling down to get the next hitter on a line out to third and after hitting a batter to fill the bases, getting the final batter of the game on a called thirds strike and a big sigh of relief enveloped the Manchester side as the Lady Hounds punched their ticket to the Division VI district semifinals.
Deservedly so, Bayleigh Spires was the winning pitche, going the final 5 1/3 innings in the center circle, allowing four earned runs but striking out 10 Lady Bearcats.
The Manchester offense banged out 15 hits, getting three-hit efforts from Elliana Applegate (two doubles) and Mahayla Brown.
The 15-10 Lady Hounds were scheduled to travel to Unioto High School on May 20 for their district semifinal contest, facing #2 seed Beaver Eastern in a 4 p.m. first pitch with a berth in the May 22 district championship game on the line.
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