Softball versus Broadway

By Michael L. Misfeldt
Special to The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — A powerhouse Broadway softball team came into Tuesday’s game at James Wood with the intention of being aggressive, and that turned out to be bad news for the Colonels.

The Gobblers held Wood to three hits in a 15-0 victory shortened to five innings.

“Our philosophy is to come out and be aggressive,” Broadway coach Becky Cantrell said. “That’s what we wanted to do, and I think they came out and they came to hit.”

Broadway catcher Danyele Smith got the scoring started quickly, as she took a 2-2 pitch from Colonels starter Erin McCarthy deep over the leftfield fence to make it 1-0 in the first inning. After a 1-2-3 bottom of the first, the Gobblers (11-2) picked up right where they left off. After going up 2-0 Heather Bagwell drove a pitch into right, scoring Eva Rellins and Jerricah McCallister and giving Broadway a 4-0 lead.

The Gobblers added another run to go up 5-0 after two innings.

Walks and wild pitches were a problem for the Colonels (2-12), who issued eight walks and tossed seven wild pitches.

“Probably half their runs came from walks and wild pitches,” Colonels coach Ted McDaniel said. “When you do that, you just give away runs, and we cannot afford to do that.”

Offensively, the Colonels only pushed one runner as far as third base.

“We didn’t hit the ball,” Wood second baseman Morgan Sykes said. “We only had three hits, and we need to get on base. You can’t win scoring zero. No matter what the other team does, you can’t win if you don’t score.”

The Gobblers added three more runs in the third inning and then popped in four more in the fourth, highlighted by RBI singles by Sarah Fulk and McCallister.

The Colonels only struck out four times, but McDaniel targeted plate discipline as an area where his team needs to improve.

“We need to be more selective at the plate,” he said. “We just did not hit the ball well tonight, and that hurt us.”

The Gobblers ended the game by adding three more runs in the top of the fifth.

Despite the loss, Sykes is confident the Colonels can turn it around in their next game against Sherando if they change a few key aspects.

“We have to get a positive attitude,” Sykes said. “We have to come out here ready to play and jump on them early and not just wait around until we get in a hole.”