St. Mary’s pitcher Taryn Munoz was working the inside corner Wednesday afternoon, and Emporia State’s hitters kept trying to pull the ball.
Pitch after pitch, the Hornets kept sending them foul, so often that the game had to be delayed several times to retrieve all the softballs hit out of play.
Finally in the fifth inning, Abby Hughes waited just long enough to make Munoz pay. Hughes laced a liner off the third baseman down the line for a go-ahead RBI double, and the Hornets held on to win their home opener 2-1.
“I was more just thinking about relaxing,” Hughes said. “I’d kind of struggled the last couple weeks at the plate a little bit, thinking a lot, so I just tried to clear my mind, put a smile on my face, and just go from there.”
The Hornets were all smiles most of the day, mostly because they were happy to finally be playing at home. Rain and poor field conditions kept ESU off its home field until Wednesday.
The teams were originally supposed to play a doubleheader on Thursday, then it got moved to Wednesday, and then the start time got bumped an hour and a doubleheader became a singe game.
ESU leadoff hitter Angela Mahan provided a perfect start to the long-awaited home opener, sending Munoz’s first pitch in the first inning over the left-center wall for a leadoff home run.
“It’s been a long roadtrip for us and it’s nice to come out and lead the game off with a home run and get fired up about playing at home,” ESU coach Kristi Bredbenner said.
In her first start at Turnbull Field, freshman pitcher Paige Ladenburger struggled with her control, walking two batters and hitting another in the first inning.
Ladenburger got a double play and pitched her way out of the first, but the Rattlers started getting hits in the third inning and Arlynda Flores tied the game with an RBI single.
Bredbenner said she put her pitchers through three tough practices leading up to Wednesday, because she didn’t anticipate the game would be moved up a day, and Ladenburger told the coach she was tired before the game.
So sophomore Jennifer Heerey relieved Ladenburger to start the fourth. Heerey (7-1) retired the first nine hitters she faced, which was needed with the ESU offense struggling to come up with a timely hit.
The Hornets stranded Miranda Campbell on third base in the first and fourth innings. Linda Ketter hit a one-out double in the fifth, and advanced to second on Jessica Brewer’s two-out infield single, and then Hughes came up with her big hit against Munoz (12-4), who pitched all six innings.
“It’s just making an adjustment,” Bredbenner said. “I think eventually, the pitcher was starting to throw them more as balls inside instead of strikes, but we were being overly aggressive and swinging at that pitch. But I’d rather us be aggressive than not. We won the game. We got eight hits. It’s just a matter of getting the timely hit, and luckily we did. We could have have gotten a few more that game.”
The Rattlers nearly tied the game in the seventh. Heerey walked Christina Rodriguez to lead off the inning, and Rodriguez advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt.
With two outs, Sarah Perez hit a single to left, but Rodriguez stopped at third instead of trying to score. Perez advanced to second when Ketter threw home. With the tying run at third and the winning run at second, Herrey was able to induce a ground ball from Lia Provence to end the game.
“It got a little wild, but I still felt in control and I had a defense behind me,” Heerey said. “They had played great defense all day, and I knew if I could just get a ground ball, they’d make a great play.”
Emporia State (15-8) improved to 2-0 against St. Mary’s (19-9) this season, which could be big later in the season when the South Central Regional rankings come out.
“I’m pretty excited we’re getting some teams to come out here and play us,” Bredbenner said. “Every game is a big game for us. We don’t play a lot of non-region games, and we’ve played, I think, a very tough in-region schedule. And anyone that we get to come play us at home, it’s even more important to beat them, because it looks worse when you lose at home than when you lose away.”
Wednesday at Turnbull Field
St. Mary’s 001 000 0 — 1 3 2
Emporia State 100 010 X — 2 8 0
WP — Heerey. LP — Munoz.
E — STMU: Miller, Perez. DP — STMU 1; Hornets 1. LOB — STMU 5; Hornets 5. 2B — ESU: Hughes, Ketter. HR — Mahan. HBP — STMU: Flores. SH — STMU: Nichols, Monroe; ESU: Self. SB — ESU: Campbell. CS — STMU: Alfaro.