John Marshall Shuts Out Wheeling Park in Softball
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WHEELING -- John Marshall softball coach Ed West has noticed that his team has struggled hitting the ball in the early portion of the season.
That didn't seem to be the case Monday night against rival Wheeling Park. Behind a one-hitter from Kadence Pettit, the Monarchs scored four runs in the second and fifth inning on eight hits en route to a 8-0 victory over the Patriots at the I-470 Fields.
"I thought we swung the bat a little bit better (Monday)," John Marshall coach Ed West said.
"We've been struggling to hit the ball a little bit in our first couple of games.
"Our bats are starting to come around and we're starting to put the ball in play better and I thought it was a good performance."
After not being able to supply a hit in the first inning, Shelby Koontz and AC Cumberledge started the second inning off with a pair of singles. Joey Mangino then flew out to centerfield, but was able to plate the first run of the game.
Kiley Ware then singled, followed by a RBI-single by Ava Blake.
Sophia Adkins grounded out, but made it 3-0, but an error by the Patriots allowed the Monarchs score a fourth run.
"Normally we're a pretty strong defense, I'm not sure how many errors we had, but we had a lot of mental errors," Wheeling Park coach Pat Durkin said. "And they're a strong hitting team. You can't give a team that hits the ball like that extra chances.
And the John Marshall defense didn't give Wheeling Park many chances. With the exception of a couple of plays, the Monarchs only allowed five Patriots on base. And the main part of that was Pettit's impressive outing in the circle.
She struck out four and hit one batter.
"Kadence is a really smooth pitcher. She has been pitching for quite a while, work with her dad and she had a good outing," West said. "We've faced a couple of really good hitting teams already, but she seemed to be on, had good control and had smooth delivery. Our defense let us down a little bit at times. I thought we were a little bit sloppy on defense, but she was able to pitch out of it. She did a nice job of getting a couple of strike outs when she needed it and consistently threw the ball where she needed to."
One of those sloppy plays came at the beginning of the fourth inning. Kyla Tharp made it all the way to third after two throwing errors by the Monarchs. However, Pettit and the defense didn't break as they got three consecutive outs afterwards.
Pettit struck the last two batters of the fourth inning and the first two of the fifth.
"We have a good defense and offense. It's really great to have a supportive team that surrounds you," Pettit said.
John Marshall tacked on to their 4-0 lead in the top of the fifth. Adkins led the inning off with a double. Pettit brought her home with a double of her own. Cumberledge supplied a RBI while Mangino followed her with a two-run double that hit off the top of the fence to put the score at 8-0.
"We needed a game like this to get our confidence back a little bit," West said. "We have some big games coming up this week. We play like seven games this week and we have a chance to win them all if we can get rolling like we can."
The Monarchs had two players with multiple hits as Koontz supplied two singles while Ward had a single and double.
Katelyn Kozlowki supplied the lone hit for Wheeling Park as she led off the second inning with a single.
"We put the bat on the ball," Durkin said. "We just got to find the hole and we'll see what happens. We'll be good."