Northside softball experienced feast or famine in the infield Wednesday while playing another school called Northside on the home field.
The Patriots from Northside High of Columbus scored two runs with two outs in the top of the seventh. The winning run of the 6-5 final was unearned, and the outcome sent the Eagles of first-year head coach Meredith Belcher to 2-7.
It was the second meeting within a week between Northside and Northside-Columbus. On Aug. 29, the Patriots won on their home field 9-6. The Eagles were playing Perry High in another non-region contest at home Tuesday, but severe weather halted play with the Panthers batting in the top of the first inning.
On Wednesday, Northside had eight hits and did its own share of two-out scoring to fight back from an early 2-0 deficit. Belcher’s team scored four in a row, but the Patriots tied the game 4-4 in the fifth.
Northside-Columbus changed pitchers that same inning, and it didn’t start well as Jaliyah Lynch, No. 1 in the lineup, drew a walk. She stole second base on a throw that went into the outfield. So with Lynch on third base, catcher Taylor Sheffield singled for Northside’s new lead of 5-4.
Pitcher Sarah Smith had an easy 1-2-3 sixth, but with one out in the seventh – and still ahead by one run – that proverbial ‘game of inches’ went against the home team. Northside-Columbus ripped a ball deep and towards the line in left field. Lynch missed squeezing the ball by those inches, and instead it went off the glove while she was still in fair ground.
The result was a double, but Smith was one out away from the complete-game win after a pop-up. The Patriots were at the top of its lineup, and on a ball hit in play past third base, umpires ruled interference by the defense against the baserunner. That put the tying run on the board automatically.
With one more error in the infield, the Patriots led 6-5 and held on despite Sheffield’s two-out single in the bottom half.
As the game began after a brief weather delay, Northside-Columbus scored two times on three two-out hits in the top of the first. Two of those hits were doubles, and it was close to being a 3-0 game if not for a relay from Mya Hill in right field to shortstop Callie Bookout to Sierra Horsting at third base for the third out.
Northside’s first hit was a leadoff double to deep left by Bookout in the home second. She scored on a two-out wild pitch, which was bad timing for the visitors as the next pitch was a swinging strikeout.
But the Eagles were back to the top spot with two outs in the third and manufactured the tying run. Lynch reached on an error and Sheffield singled. Cassidy Ruffin, with Lynch on third base, singled through a hole making it 2-2.
On to the fourth, where Cierra White ripped a first-pitch double inside the left-field line. She scored on Smith’s single to left, and with a third straight hit by Hill, Northside was up 4-2.
Smith recorded just one strikeout from the circle. For the game, her infield recorded 10 outs on ground balls. For all the good execution, when things went bad (as it did in the seventh) it was one mistake compounding another.
A string of eight outs in a row for Northside ended with a one-out error in the top of the fifth. The Patriots used a sacrifice, and it worked in a two-out RBI double to the wall in center. The Eagles had a chance to get back in the dugout ahead 4-3, but a big mistake led to a wild throw and 4-4 game.
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