Cardington’s Ava Davis picked up two hits and drove in three runs Thursday against Mount Gilead.
Rob Hamilton | Morrow County Sentinel
Cardington rode an opportunistic offense and powerful pitching to a 14-0 home win over Mount Gilead on Thursday in improving to 13-2 on the season.
After not scoring in the first inning, the Pirates took advantage of Indian miscues to tally three runs in the second frame, followed by six in the third and five in the fourth. Meanwhile, Genevieve Longsdorf controlled the game on the mound, only giving up a single to Anavey Jodrey and a walk to Greer Simpson — both in the fourth inning — while striking out 15 in five innings.
“I couldn’t be more proud of Genevieve,” said first-year head coach Baylee Adams. “She is such a great pitcher. She hits her spots, she throws the ball hard, she changes speed well. You can do a lot when you have a good pitcher and I’m really proud of her.”
After not being able to generate offense in the opening inning off MG pitcher Savannah Wilt, the Pirates got things started in the second when Celia Hall reached on an infield single. A wild pitch moved her all the way to third base and she then took home due to inattention on MG’s part defensively. Myleigh Bishop then drew a walk and Abby Ufferman followed with a ground ball that led to runners on first and third after an errant throw to second to get the lead runner. Ava Davis then followed with a ground ball that was misplayed to allow two more runs to cross home plate.
Indian coach Morgan Dettra said that with a young team dominated by freshmen and sophomores, it’s a work in progress, noting that while Cardington didn’t have a lot of hard-hit balls, they were able to take advantage of any mistake her squad made.
“They had two or three solid hits,” she said. “We’re trying to find a defense that works. We’re still focusing on improving. We’re still so young. We’re trying to gain them confidence. We’re playing a couple JV games this year to work their skills and make them better so we can be a competitor in the KMAC.”
Those defensive struggles also made things rough in the third inning. After Alexis Longsdorf led off with a single and Morgan Powell was hit by a pitch, a pair of errors resulted in three runs scoring during the at-bats of Ari Simpson and Kayden Burchett. Hall then bunted for a single and Bishop then recorded a two-run single. After a pair of ground ball outs moved Bishop to third, she would be brought home by a Genevieve Longsdorf single, which made it 9-0.
“We have some pretty powerful hitters,” said Adams of her team. “I’m really confident in one through nine and then we had two hitters who came off the bench and had two hits. It’s always a difficult situation to be in. You’re not playing and then your moment comes and you get two hits. I’m really proud of those two who came in. Overall, though, I’m really proud of how we hit today.”
The Indians would threaten in the top of the fourth, as Simpson walked with one out and Jodrey singled with two gone to put runners on first and second, but Genevieve Longsdorf would respond with a strikeout to get out of the inning unscathed.
Cardington would then add five more runs in the bottom of the inning. Madison Dornan and Chloe Nida both came off the bench to record run-scoring hits, which were followed by back-to-back RBI singles from Davis and Genevieve Longsdorf before a final run came across the plate on a misplayed pop-up.
After the game, Dettra noted that her team is improving.
“We’ve definitely improved throughout the year,” she said. “Our hitting definitely still needs work, but defensively, we’ve improved. Our pitching has improved from the previous year as well.”
After the Pirates — a team used to regularly competing at Akron in the state Final Four — had a rare sub-par year by their standards, their win-loss record is back to expectations. Adams credits that to both player improvement and the addition of a pair of freshmen to the line-up.
“I think we’ve preached and preached over the summer, if you’re not playing travel ball, you need to get in the weight room, you need to hit, you need to do fielding,” she said. “The two freshmen who came in, Alexis Longsdorf and Celia Hall, have flipped the line-up so much. They have big roles on our field and in our line-up. We still have multiple sophomores on the field. I think they’re doing one heck of a job this year as well.”
Rob Hamilton can be reached at 419-946-3010, ext. 1807. Connect with him on Twitter at @SportsMCS
