ND ladies take down Winona 8/15/2014
Published 12:00 am Friday, August 15, 2014
North Delta catcher Myles Durham displays proof of the catch during the district game against Winona Tuesday. The Lady Green Wave took the game, 11-4. The Panolian photo by Glennie Pou
ND ladies take down Winona
By Brad Greer
After losing its District 1-AA home opener to Indianola Monday night, North Delta School head softball coach Damon Plummer rolled the dice and shuffled his batting lineup against visiting Winona Tuesday.
The decision paid off as Meribeth Johns and Sarah Johnson drove in three runs each as the Lady Green Wave erased an early deficit with a six-run outburst in the fourth inning to gain an 11-4 victory over the Stars.
“We decided to move Meribeth up from ninth to six in the lineup to give her some confidence and she came though with some big hits tonight,” said Plummer.
North Delta (7-5;1-1) trailed 4-2 in the fourth before plating six runs on one hit to take a 8-4 lead. The Lady Waves took advantage of three walks, one hit batter and two errors in the frame with the lone hit coming from a three-run double by Johnson. The lead was more than enough for North Delta starting pitcher Caroline Dickins as the junior right-hander struck out 12 to earn the complete game victory. Dickins fanned 13 batters in an 8-0 loss to Indianola Monday night.
“I just had a feeling that sooner or later we were going to come up with a big inning,“ said Plummer. “We had seven hits last night (against Indianola) but left 13 runners on base and never could get that one key hit. Tonight we took advantage of some walks and a few fielding mistakes but we hit the ball hard at times. Sarah’s hit in the fourth put us ahead and Caroline’s triple in the first got us on the board and she threw another great game. We just have to keep the momentum going next week,” said Plummer.
North Delta has a full slate of games next week starting at home Monday against Kirk at 5 p.m. before traveling to No. 2 ranked and defending AA State champion Bayou at 4 p.m., they return home Wednesday to face No. 3 ranked Magnolia Heights starting at 5 p.m. with the ‘B’ team contest.
Winona quickly took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first before North Delta answered with two runs of their own to tie the game at 2-2 after one inning of play. Anna Lloyd’s leadoff bunt single was followed by Dickins blasting a triple into right field. Three batters later, Johns beat out a two-out bunt that plated Dickins for the tying run.
Winona retook the lead in the second with a run then added another run in the fourth before the Lady Waves sent 11 batters to the plate in the bottom half of the frame.
North Delta extended its lead to 9-4 in the fifth as Madeline Ray reached on a double then later scored on Lloyd’s groundout. The Waves tacked on the final two runs in the sixth as Johns delivered a two-run single that scored Taylor Barton and Johnson. Janie Brassell doubled and Hailey Lamm added a single as the Waves recorded eight hits in the game.
Indianola- 8
North Delta-0
North Delta recorded seven hits, but stranded 12 runners on the base path with the bases loaded in the second, fifth and sixth innings. Mary Margaret Pearson and Lloyd paced the Green Wave offense with two singles each. Dickins and Johnson followed with singles while Ginger Stevens added a double.
