Lady Lions jump out to early lead against Baird

Thu, 04/11/2024 - 14:52

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Carisa Barrera slides in safe at home for a score during the Lady Lions’ 9-3 win over Baird last Friday. Tuesday’s game with Abilene TCLA was rained out, but has been rescheduled for Thursday (today) at 5:00 p.m. Donnie Lucas / Albany News

The Albany Lady Lions softball team rode a fast start to a 9-3 win over Baird on Friday, April 5 in their second outing since resuming play.

The Lady Lions were rained out Tuesday, April 9 in their game at Abilene TLCA. The teams will try again at 5:00 p.m. Thursday, April 11 (today) at Cobb Park off N. 10th Street in Abilene, providing that field is not too wet.

The girls will also play on Friday, April 12 in Eula, with a 5:00 p.m. game time.

Playing its first home game since February, Albany jumped on Baird for three runs in the first and led 9-0 in the fourth. Coach Jimmy Fuentes said the Lady Lions did a good job of bouncing back from a 7-6 loss in nine innings Tuesday, April 2 at Cross Plains. That was the team’s first game in more than a month because of low numbers.

“We got our bats going Friday,” Fuentessaid.“Ourgoalwas to not make the same mistakes we did against Cross Plains. We needed to figure the pitcher out earlier, communicate to one another how to get it done, and not have that bad inning where we extend it with mistakes.”

One key area, Fuentes said, was making contact. After suffering 18 strikeouts against Cross Plains, Albany batters fanned just five times against Baird.

“Themainthingwaswedidn’t go down looking like we did against Cross Plains,” he said.

Albany pitcher Carisa Barrera retired the first 11 batters she faced in pitching a complete game.Thejuniorstruckoutnine while allowing two earned runs on 10 hits.

Robin Lucas went 3 for 4 with two doubles and an RBI, while Barrera drove in two runs in, going 1 for 4. Charlee Hefner was 2 for 4, leading off a fiverun fifth with a home run off the scoreboard. Madi Parrott doubled twice and J’Cee Keen was 2 for 4 with an RBI. Braylyn Abbate, Jayden Kelly, and Gabby Lopez each had a hit.

Fuentes said the task now is to continue making progress in the remaining games.

“We were off all that time, so we need to pick up where we left off and continue to improve,” he said. “I didn’t want to see us take a step back in anything. Therehasn’tbeenanything drastic, just knocking a little rust off.”