March 28, 2024

Panthers shut the door on Glenwood in fourth inning

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A big momentum swing in the fourth inning shut the door on Glenwood’s hopes of a Hawkeye 10 Conference victory here Monday, as Creston shut out the Rams 4-0.

Clinging to 1-0 lead in the top of the fourth inning, Creston saw the Rams load the bases with just one out.

But senior pitcher Haylee LaMasters worked out of the jam, inducing a popup and a grounder to shortstop Taylor Briley to end the inning.

In the bottom half of the inning, the Panthers responded by scoring three runs to take a 4-0 lead.

Sophomore Lexie Little started things off with a one-out single to center and stole second base, before scoring on junior Alyssa Higgins’ double into the right-center field gap. Higgins came around to score on one of Josie Sickels’ three base hits on the night.

Sickels later scored on a Glenwood scoring error.

“Those are big moments in a game,” Creston head coach Mike McCabe said. “At that point, it was 1-0. Not only did we deflate them a little bit in the top of the inning, but we came back to score three runs in the bottom of the inning.”

McCabe was impressed by both Little and Higgins in their at-bats, as both battled back from an 0-2 count to extend the at-bat.

“Two huge at-bats there in the eight and nine spots,” McCabe said. “Josie had a nice night in the leadoff spot for us with three hits and a stolen base. Taylor, I thought, made a couple of sparkling plays defensively that were kind of key for us.”

Briley made a pair of tough plays that went off LaMasters on comebackers. It was that type of stellar defense throughout the night, coupled with LaMasters’ pitching that shut down the Rams.

LaMasters gave up six hits in the win and struck out eight batters with no walks.

“You can’t lose if you don’t give up runs, so probably a combination of a pretty well-pitched game by Haylee and some pretty good plays defensively,” McCabe said. “Taylor had a couple of huge plays there. I think one was on the (Sarah) Ingoldsby girl to keep her off the base and she’s kind of their spark plug, their igniter.”

Creston opened the scoring in the first inning, as Sickels and Briley led off with back-to-back singles. A fielder’s choice and an infield fly left two on with two outs, before Brenna Baker reached on an error to load the bases.

Junior Alli Thomsen drew a four-pitch walk to bring home Briley, pushing the first run across.

“Bing, bing, base hit, base hit and then we had our first of two where we didn’t situationally handle it very well,” McCabe said. “We didn’t get runners moved up. Fortunately, for us, Alli had a good at-bat and drew a walk. At least we were able to get one up on the board.”

McCabe said he saw some improvement from his team offensively from what he saw in Thursday’s doubleheader at Lewis Central.

“I thought we were better tonight with our at-bats,” he said. “We didn’t chase as many things up, yet I thought we were still aggressive. Good conference win. They’re one of the teams I would expect to compete in there. I was pleased, knowing they’d scored 12, 13 runs in two or three of their four ballgames.”

The Panthers, now 2-1 overall and 2-1 in the Hawkeye 10 Conference, hit the road tonight to take on Clarinda, before traveling to Harlan for a varsity doubleheader on Thursday.

Junior varsity

The Creston JV softball team improved to 2-0 for the season with an 11-1 win over Glenwood on Monday.

Taylor Briey struck out seven and walked none, while Cali Foglesong struck out two in relief.

Chloe Hagle went 2-for-3 at the plate with a triple and two RBI. Foglesong and Kiersten Latham each rapped two hits, as Foglesong drove in one run. Hannah Hood and Morgan Shawler each added one RBI.

Creston 4, Glenwood 0

R H E

Glenwood 000 000 0 — 0 6 3

Creston 100 300 x — 4 9 2

G: Jacy Embray 1K 1BB, Mackenzie Richter (5) 2K 0BB and Sarah Ingoldsby. Cr: Haylee LaMasters 8K 0BB and Natalie Mostek. W — LaMasters. L— Embray. HR — none. 3B — none. 2B — Cr: Alyssa Higgins 1. RBI — Cr: Josie Sickels 1, Alli Thomsen 1, Higgins 1. Multiple hitters — G: Lyndie VanNess 2. Cr: Josie Sickels 3.