The Tyrone girls softball team split a pair of games late in the week, downing Southern Huntingdon 2-1 on Friday after dropping a 3-1 decision to Philipsburg-Osceola on Thursday afternoon.
Home cooking was just what the Lady Eagles needed. Entertaining the Lady Rockets, Tyrone pushed across runs in the first and seventh to squeeze past Southern Huntingdon to even their record at 3-3. The Tyrone girls are 3-0 at the Harry Sickler Atletic Complex, but 0-3 in road games.
Junior center fielder Katie Whitby had a hand in both scores for the Lady Eagles. In the first Whitby led off the inning by drawing a base on balls, advanced to third base on a couple passed balls and scored on a fielder’s choice by Missy Stager. Stager hit a grounder to the Southern second baseman, who threw to the plate, trying unsuccessfully attempting to get Whitby at home. Then in the seventh, Stephanie Catich waked to put a Tyrone runner on base. Meghan McAllister dropped down a sacrifice bunt to get Catich in scoring position and Whitby lined an RBI single up the middle to score the winning run.
Hilary McNelis went the distance to pick up the win for Tyrone, allowing one run on two hits, striking out nine and walking four. McNelis also added a double in three trips to the plate. Tyrone left fielderAshley Ripka was the only player for either team with two hits.
Erica Hockenberry took the loss for the Lady Rockets, allowing two runs on five hits, striking out six and walking two.
“We didn’t do a very good job of moving up runners, until the seventh inning today,” said Tyrone coach Lois Loncher. “We need to do a better job of doing the little things, like bunting up runners. We had been doing a good job, but couldn’t get te job done today until Meghan moved Stephanie up in the seventh. We hit the ball hard right at people at times and started pressing a little bit when Southerfn tied the game up. The main thing is we kept our composure and got the win.”
The Tyrone girls traveled to Philipsburg for a contest against the Philipsburg-Osceola Lady Mounties on Thursday afternoon. The Lady Eagles woes continued dropping a 3-1 decision to P-O that was their third low-run loss of the season. Following a season opening 15-0 win, all of the next four games have been decided by two runs or less with Tyrone dropping three of the four to fall to 2-3 on the season.
On Thursday, Stephanie Bryan walked with the bases loaded in the fourth inning to plate Missy Stager with the Lady Eagles only tally of the ballgame, as the Lady Mounties limited the Tyrone girls to two hits, singles by losing pitcher Hilary McNelis and left fielder Ashley Ripka.Stager had reached base on a walk and moved around the bases on the McNelis single and a wak to Kim Cherry. No Lady Eagle was able to reach base twice.
Philipsburg-Osceola took advantage of what Tyrone gave them, scoring a run that reached base on a walk in the third inning and an error in the fourth. Pearson, who had the only extra-base hit of the game, a double in the sixth, scored twice to lead the Lady Mounties
McNelis struck out six and walked two allowing four hits, while Comley picked up the win yielding two hits, fanning seven and walking four.
“We are just coming up a little bit short, it’s so frustrating at this point,” said Loncher. “The effort is there, we keep knocking at the door, but we haven’t been able to kick it in. We came back and scored to tie the game after they went ahead. We threw three runners out on the bases trying to advance against us.
“We just have to regroup and get ready for our games the next two days.”
Tyrone plays a makeup game against the Blue Devils at Bellwood on Saturday morning at 10 a.m.
