COVINGTON- The Greenbrier East Lady Spartans traveled to Alleghany County, VA on Monday evening to face an extremely tough Alleghany Lady Cougars team.
The Cougars, who returned several key players from last year’s squad, showed how important experience is and cruised to a 17-2 victory over the Lady Spartans.
Reagan Cline put the Spartans ahead on the very first at bat of the game when she hit a leadoff homerun over the right field fence in impressive fashion. However, that would be the Spartans only lead of the evening as the Cougars scored seven runs over the next two frames and led 7-1 after two.
Down 15-1 in the top half of the fourth inning, East’s Haylee Heaster blasted her second homer of the young season, a solo shot to left field, and that was all she wrote for the scoring column.
Coincidentally, the two Spartan homers were the only two hits of the night as Alleghany pitcher Emma Skidmore went five innings with nine strikeouts.
The Spartans used three pitchers–Kennah Collins, Chloey Wykle, and Maddie Wellman– but Alleghany’s offense pounded out 14 hits and was also aided by six Lady Spartan errors.
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PIKEVIEW- The Lady Spartans played much better at Pikeview on Tuesday night and went to extra innings, but fielding errors still crept into the picture as they committed six again. The Panthers used one of those errors to their advantage in the bottom of the seventh when they scored the game winning run and defeated Greenbrier East 9-8.
East had a 5-2 lead going into the bottom of the fifth, but the Lady Panthers put up four runs’ thanks in large part to a 3-run homerun from Emma Compton.
The Spartans regained the lead in the top of the sixth when Natalee Sibold led off the frame with a single and was driven in two batters later by Maddie Baker. Later in the inning, Campbell Bundy ripped a 2-run double that gave East an 8-6 lead after six.
Leading by the same score and headed to the bottom of the seventh, the Lady Panthers started their come-from-behind rally. Compton led off with her second dinger of the night and the Spartan lead was trimmed to just one run, 8-7. But over the last four Pikeview batters, East committed two errors which allowed the Panthers to steal a victory from the jaws of defeat.
Bundy was big at the plate for East and went 3-4 with a double, a HR, a run scored, and 4 RBI.
Wellman started the game in the circle for the Lady Spartans and allowed three earned runs in four innings and struck out four batters.
Compton’s two homeruns and 4 RBI led Pikeview.
Greenbrier East (1-3) is back home on Monday, March 30 when they host Wyoming East. First pitch is scheduled for 5:30 PM.
