By Mark Sawyer
The Winchester Star

Winchester — More often than not, it’s not how many hits a team gets that decides the outcome of a game — it’s which team gets the key hits in the clutch situations.

Such was the case for the Millbrook High School softball team Friday night.

The Pioneers broke a 2-2 tie with a pair of inside-the-park home runs in the last two innings to knock off James Wood 4-2 in a Northwestern District game at Wood’s Ridge Field. “This game tonight we hit better,” Millbrook coach Michelle Long said. “We didn’t hit a lot, but we made better contact and that’s really what it’s all about right now.

“... You’ve got to make every game go in the win column, and we did that tonight. We didn’t give up. We kept battling, stayed focused, and they really buckled down and did what they needed to do.”

It was a back-and-forth contest with both teams having opportunities, but it was the Pioneers who stepped up immediately after the Colonels tied the score 2-2 in the fifth.

Leading off the top of the sixth inning, senior shortstop Alexis LaBiche, known by her teammates as “Texas,” got a hit as big as her nickname.

LaBiche ripped a line drive into the right-center field gap, and as the ball rolled to the fence she circled the bases for what appeared to be an easy triple. But Long had no intention of holding her at third, and LaBiche crossed the plate just ahead of the throw from Colonels shortstop Felicity Eiland.

Millbrook (5-4, 2-1 Northwestern District) added an insurance run when center fielder Stephanie Curry ripped a shot almost to the exact same spot as LaBiche, and it had the exact same result, as she circled the bases and again crossed the plate just ahead of Eiland’s throw for a 4-2 lead.

“I’ve never, as long as I’ve coached here, seen two in-the-park home runs in a game,” Long said. “They were beautiful hits. They were in the gap, and luckily I have two of the faster runners on the team that did it. They probably should’ve just been triples. [James Wood] had great throws coming in.”

It was a unique game in the fact that the two teams combined for 11 hits, and six of those were either triples or inside the park home runs.

James Wood (1-9, 0-2) jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning. With one out, Lauren Myers tripled down the rightfield line and scored on a two-out RBI single by Rachel Largent.

The game stayed that way until the Pioneers took the lead with a pair of runs in the top of the fourth. Megan Atlee led off the inning by reaching first on a dropped third strike. One out later, Kayla Priet tripled to the left-field fence to tie the game. Priet scored to make it 2-1 on an Amber Wells RBI groundout.

In the bottom of the fifth, the Colonels answered with a run to tie it. Eiland led off with a sharp single to left and moved to second on a passed ball. After a sacrifice bunt by Megan Christian moved Eiland to third, Whitney Dennis tied the game 2-2 with a single to left.

“Very disappointed. There’s no way to describe it,” James Wood coach Ted McDaniel said. “They got the key hits, and give them credit for that, but I was disappointed in the way we played. The home runs — we had a chance to get the outs. We just didn’t make the plays. Winning teams make plays, and we don’t make the plays day in and day out. We play good ball and we have good effort. All we can do is come back out next week and try again.”

James Wood outhit the Pioneers 6-5, but the only player on either team with more than one hit was Curry, who finished 2 for 3. LaBiche and Priet each were 1 for 3.

Morgan Sykes, Morgan Baker, and Myers each were 1 for 3 with a triple for the Colonels.