MINT HILL, NC – The Ardrey Kell Lady Knights defeated the Lady Patriots 11-7 in a non-conference matchup at Independence. In a contest where some costly fielding errors along with a couple of second-chance opportunities truly made the difference in this ballgames final outcome.
The Knights had 5 unearned runs which catapulted the visitors to earning the win. The Patriots kicked the ball around, made some throwing errors, and misplayed a couple of flyball outs dropping in foul territory in key situations, when all added up it took away a potential victory against a solid softball team.
Audrey Kell took a 1 run lead in the first inning on a base hit up the middle with two outs, then followed up with two more runs in the second frame when Emersyn Presutty blasted a Morgan Clark fastball beep over the center field fence just missing the flagpole to give the Knights a 3-0 advantage. In the bottom of the second, the Patriots responded with Sarah Johnson leading off with a solid base hit, Terris Adkins flew out to deep leftfield, then Elizabeth Garbark drilled a homerun deep over the center-field fence to cut the Knights lead to 3-2 after two innings of competition.
For the next two innings both teams could not score a run, however, in the fifth inning the Knights would break through scoring 4 runs on a couple of key hits, a combination of some fielding miscues, a walk with Garbark now on the mound in relief for only 2 earned runs being scored. The Patriots responded in their bottom half with 1 run making the score 7-3.
In the 6th inning the Knights added 3 more runs and 1 more insurance run in the 7th inning. Clark returned to the pitching rubber in the 6th to replace Garbark who pitched well enough and competed, but was not able to get the final out.
After being down 11-3, Independence showed some true grit with a 4 run rally in their final at-bat. They had some key RBI base hits, a wild pitch, one base-on-balls that all contributed to making the game very interesting until the final out was made stranding 2 baserunners in scoring position.
Garbark lead the offensive charge for Indy going 2-4 with 3 ribbies, and a homerun, followed by Olivia Baker 2-3, Sarah Johnson 2-4, and Kristen Kirby 1-2. While Allison Smith went 3-5 with 1 RBI to lead the Knights.
