After a slow start, the North Greene Lady Huskies broke the game open in the second inning and ran away with an 18-8 win over Chuckey-Doak on Good Friday.
“It feels good. We were out of our rhythm, but I thought the girl’s hit it well. “We got down early and they responded,” North Greene coach Avery Weems stated.
The Lady Knights took advantage in the first and took a 3-0 lead in the top half, but an 8-run second inning sent North Greene into the lead and they never looked back. It was an unusual game for both sides. A game on Good Friday with a 1:00 start time seemed to bother North Greene in the early going. They straightened things out in the second inning and eventually pulled out to a 10-run lead to activate the run-rule clause in the sixth.
North Greene produced 12 hits and took advantage of Chuckey-Doak’s 4 errors. Chuckey-Doak produced 10 hits themselves and also took advantage of North Greene’s 4 errors.
Heidi Trentham had herself a day and led North Greene in hits and RBI’s and tied for the team lead in runs. Her final stat line read 3-for-3, 4 RBI’s, 3 runs, and one walk.
Many other North Greene girls turned in impressive stat lines. Kinlea Eastep picked up right where she left off last night with another home run in her first at bat since the homer. She finished 2-for-4 with 2 RBI’s and 3 runs. Destiny Fillers had one huge swing of the bat with a bases-clearing double. She had a 1-for-2 game with 3 RBI’s and a run. Matti Phillips started as North Greene’s pitcher and twirled 3.2 innings with 9 hits, 3 earned runs, 4 walks, and 5 strikeouts. She went 2-for-4 with 3 runs in the batter’s box.
“That was big out of Heidi. It was very good to see Kinlea hit that one. She got a good pitch that she could hit and she didn’t miss it. She jumped on it and hit it well,” Coach Weems stated.
Chuckey-Doak was carried by Saniah Atchison’s 4-for-4 day with a home run, 3 runs, and an RBI. Tralyn Southerland went 2-for-3 with 2 RBI’s, 2 runs, and a walk. Abby Donoho started and pitched three innings with 9 hits, 9 earned runs, 3 walks, and 2 strikeouts.
North Greene improved to 11-5 with the victory.
Saniah Atchison started the game the best way she could with a second-pitch home run over the left field wall. Her leadoff solo shot put Chuckey-Doak ahead 1-0. Jade Foreman and Southerland got on base with a single and double. They both scored with Kendra Percell bunted and forced North Greene to make a long throwing error to get both runs across.
Down 3-0, Kinlea Eastep walked into the batter’s box and crushed another home run to lead off the game.
The Lady Knights loaded the bases in the second, but couldn’t scratch any runs across and left all three stranded. Phillips struck out three batters in the frame to escape the jam.
Heidi Trentham’s double led off the Lady Huskies’ 8-run second. Jourdanne Marr was hit by a pitch to put two runners on the base paths. Destiny Fillers delivered a 2-RBI double to left field to tie the game at 3-3. Estep delivered another huge swing of the bat next with an RBI-triple to score Fillers. Loren Blevins flew into a sac fly to push Estep home. With the bases cleared and two outs, the Lady Huskies still did more damage and added four more runs. Matti Phillips singled and Hannah Brooks reached base with an error. Josie Graham scored both with a 2-RBI double to left field. Trentham hit a single into center and scored Graham. Charlie Turnmire scored her with an RBI-double next.
The Lady Huskies led 9-3 after the second inning.
“The second inning we really broke out and had a good showing on offense and strung some hits together and got some base runners on. That was really good to bounce back and take back control of the game,” Weems explained.
Both teams went three-up and three-down in the third.
Chuckey-Doak came through with another big inning and added four runs in the fourth. Atchison got on base with a 1-out single and scored through Foreman’s single. Tralyn Southerland singled with two outs to drive Foreman home. Percell singled and Jayden Myers got on through an error. Maura Phillips singled next to score a run and Emmie Tipton walked to add another.
After giving up four in the top, North Greene countered that with four of their own. Phillips led off with a single and back-to-back walks to Kennedy Malone and Josie Graham loaded the bases. Trentham and Marr drew walks to score Phillips and Malone. Fillers laid down a sacrifice bunt to help Graham score. Trentham ended the inning’s scoring by scoring on a wild pitch.
North Greene took back control of the game with a 13-7 lead.
Another single from Saniah Atchison led off the fifth and she scored Chuckey-Doak’s final run through Southerland’s ground out.
The Lady Huskies went back to work and scored four more in the fifth. Blevins walked and Phillips hopped aboard after a Chuckey-Doak error. Malone crushed a 2-RBI double to center field and scored both runners. Trentham’s big day continued with a sac fly to score Malone. Turnmire got on with another Lady Knights error and Madison McLain drove her home with a 2-out single.
North Greene sent everyone home early with Trentham’s RBI-single to score Eastep.
The game ended with an 18-8 run-rule victory by the Lady Huskies.
North Greene finished the week 4-0 with three key wins over District 1-1A teams University High, Unaka, and Cloudland. “On Monday we talked about how it was going to be a big week for us with three conference games. We talked about wanting to go 4-0 this week. Just gotta take it a game at a time and that’s what we did and we were able to pull it off. That’s really good that we had a good week,” Coach Weems mentioned.
They travel to play South Greene on Monday at 5:00. Chuckey-Doak suits up again to play Johnson County on the road Monday at 5:00.
