HENRIETTA — The bats were ringing at the Farm Tuesday night, March 21 as the East Rutherford Lady Cavaliers crushed two home runs and three extra base hits in their 7-0 win over the CHASE Lady Trojans. Along with the constant string of hits, the Lady Cavaliers were also led by solid pitching from freshman Chloe Adair who threw nine strikeouts and only gave up five hits in her fourth shutout of the season.
“They came out swinging their bats, can’t really be upset about that,” East Rutherford’s head coach Laura Ray said laughing. “Nine hits and seven runs, that’s run production, I’ll take it. Now we have to go back to the drawing board because we play them again (Friday) … playing back-to-back is a different animal.”
The Cavaliers started the night off with a bang as Adair and Cagney Pruett reached base on balls to start off the night. Junior Mollie Burgess stepped up and crushed a line drive to left field for a double, driving courtesy runner Christy Yarbrough. Pruett on third, a sacrifice ground ball from Casse McFarland brought in the second run. With the energy rising, Burgess advanced to third after a sacrifice fly from Halle McFarland. An error put Willow Hardin on second base and saw Burgess cross the plate to make it 3-0 in the top of the third.
Despite the quick work, CHASE’s pitcher and Belmont Abbey commit, Christian Beaver, settled in and secured a strikeout to end the inning.
“[Beaver] pitched well, anytime she toes the rubber we know we are going to get good consistent pitching from her,” CHASE head coach Daniel Bailey said. “But yeah just her senior leadership, she bulldogs out there and is never going to give up therefore the rest of the team is going to follow her and they’re not going to give up.”
Alexis Chapman opened the fourth inning with a base hit to left field. Alexis Grayson laid down a sacrifice bunt to advance Chapman to second. Chapman crossed the plate for the Cavaliers’ fourth run after a double from Lulu Price. With Price on second, Adair walked up to the plate and crushed a 2-run home run to left field, her first of her career.
“I have been dropping my shoulder so I was just trying to hit a line drive and not do too much and made good contact,” Adair said. “I was not expecting it to go out. It really pumped me up … everybody was up and that helped a lot.”
The Lady Cavs didn’t stop there as Cagney Pruett opened the seventh inning with a solo home run, increasing the Cavs’ lead to 7-0.
“I didn’t really know it was going to happen, I just got in the box and swung,” Pruett said. “I felt like I was due for one I haven’t hit one since my freshman year. I just felt it off the bat.”
The Cavaliers truly worked for every run they had against Beaver as her experience gained her an advantage in deep counts but the Cavaliers were still able to find the ball.
“Beaver has always thrown well, she moves the ball and shes a veteran pitcher so when you’re able to produce runs that’s huge,” Ray said. Beaver pitched the entire game where she recorded five strikeouts in the outing.
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“I feel like we have a good chemistry and after beating Polk we really needed to humble ourselves,” Beaver said. “It’s just about my team. Sometimes in the pitching circle people can get big heads and think it’s all them but really it’s the whole the team you play for.”
Going forward Beaver knows exactly what she has to do to be prepared for their rematch on Friday.
“I’m going to approach it with different pitches and a lot more mental strength,” Beaver said. Being down six runs after just four innings, the Trojans found it hard to come back and string together hits. One hitter that was seeing the ball really well was freshman Charlise Byrd. Byrd went two-for-three on the night with two lead off slap hits to get on base. Unfortunately, the Trojans were not able to string together the hits to bring her home.
“I just feel like as a team, no matter the score, even though my hit didn’t matter, I have to put it out there and set the tone for the other people to give others a chance to be that first run because it’s not about me,” Byrd said. “I just feel like I should still have a good mental mindset [on Friday] and not blow my head up and keep a strong mental mindset.”
For coach Bailey, the girls just couldn’t find that the string of hits to bring in the runs.
“There are not excuses, they come over here and beat us,” Bailey said. “They outplayed us, got us out of our game. We just have to adjust tomorrow and go back to work. We have some things we can fix before Friday and hopefully go over there and play our style of ball.”
The Cavaliers and Trojans will face again on Friday, March 24 with East Rutherford playing host. First pitch is slated for 6 p.m.
WP — Chloe Adair
LP — Christian Beaver
ERHS 300 300 1 — 7 11 0
CHS 000 000 0 — 0 5 2