Beating Warwick with three outs in an inning is a tall enough task. Giving them an extra out in an inning is a recipe for disaster.
Hempfield gave the Warriors four outs in an inning in four innings. Warwick made each one hurt in a 14-4 Lancaster-Lebanon League softball victory Monday evening in Lititz.
The win moved the Warriors (10-2 L-L, 12-3 overall) into a tie with the Black Knights for first place in Section One. And, with the win, the Warriors hold the tiebreaker, head-to-head, for the top seed from the section in the league playoffs.
With the Warriors raking 14 hits, the four errors loomed large.
“When you play good teams like this,” Black Knights coach Chris Landis said, “you can’t have errors. As you saw, every time we had an error, it led to runs.”
Black Knights starter Carley Ernst was touched for 13 runs, two earned. The Warriors started early as seven of the first 13 batters offered at the first pitch.
“Her first pitch was usually a strike,” said Madisen Minney, who drove in five of the Warriors’ 14 runs. “If you caught it out in front at the right time, it was an easy single, double.”
Bella Smithson ripped the first pitch she saw for an RBI triple to the base of the fence in left-center, followed by Minney’s RBI hit — not the last time Minney would deliver on this evening. A two-out error in the infield led to two more runs and the Warriors were off and running.
The Knights (10-2, 12-3) drew close in the third inning on Avery Landis’ RBI single and a two-run double from Chloe Dienner, but surrendered the momentum in the bottom of the inning.
Sam Shaak reached on an infield single and scored when catcher Avery Landis threw Emerson Overly’s sacrifice into right field for a three-base error. Overly then scored on a ground out.
With two out in the fourth, Smithson and Minney singled. Sam Shaak reached on Lily Ashton’s error at shortstop, scoring Smithson, and came home behind Minney on Overly’s two-run double to left.
The Knights got one back on Dienner’s sacrifice fly — her third RBI of the night — but the Warriors blew the game farther open in the bottom of the fifth as an error by Dienner at third, on a short hop, opened the door, eventually, for Minney to slug a grand slam over the fence in right center.
“When I hit it, it felt good,” said Minney. “And then coach (Christina) Fish, at first, she got a little excited, and I knew it was over.”
The slam, on Ernst’s 88th pitch of the night, ended Ernst’s night as Sydney Weaver came on in relief, getting the last out of the inning. Weaver would not escape the evening unblemished. Overly tripled to the base of the fence to open the Warriors’ sixth and Brooke Nolt sent her, and everybody, home with a sac fly to center, triggering the mercy rule.
With the schedule advantage in Warwick’s favor, Hempfield has its work cut out to, possibly, get back on top.
“We need some help,” said Landis. “But if we play like that, we don’t deserve it.”
