DELTA — Recalling Saturday that in previous games she felt she hadn’t done her obvious nickname justice, Montezuma-Cortez leftfielder Koral “Action” Jackson grinned about the fact that Basalt all-too-happily tested her.
“Usually I haven’t been getting a lot of ‘action,’” she said, “so to have all these super-high ones ... take so much time to get to you, and there’s so much time to think, like, ‘What am I going to do?’ and ‘What if I’m not right underneath it?’ It felt really nice ... to have some that I could actually ‘play’ with.”
But despite snagging three potentially damaging flies and scooping as many Basalt hits sent her way, her defense during the final four innings couldn’t spark an M-CHS rally in the first of two clashes with the 3A Western Slope League’s reigning champs at neutral Delta High School.
And neither could it in the second as the Lady Panthers fell 6-3 and 16-1.
“They hit our pitchers really good. They had Taiah (Wilson) timed out,” said head coach Anthony ‘Hippo’ Frost. “But I’d rather lose now than later in the season, you know?”
“It was pretty crazy to see how much Basalt was hitting, and how we were reacting to it,” said Jackson. “We were reacting really well in the later half of the (first) game. You could definitely tell in the second game that wasn’t really there, and that’s what blew us away.”
After a half-hour lunch break, the Longhorns greeted Wilson — who’d just taken a complete-game loss, despite holding Basalt scoreless from the fifth inning on — with singles Jackson’s way on each of her first three pitches during the bottom of the first. Lead-off hitter Graci Dietrich belted a 2-RBI double her second time up, and Jenna Power-Smith — batting eighth in David Miller’s order — capped the onslaught with a 2-RBI knock to right.
“She did really well for having to pitch ... that second game, but we were ready for it,” said Basalt senior ace Maya Lindgren, who retired 11 of the last 13 Lady Panthers she saw in Game 1, and outdueled Wilson to earn a complete-game win.
“It’s really hard as a pitcher — like, I know!” she said, alluding to the fact the Lady ’Horns entered the twin bill having already played two others – Cedaredge and 4A Rifle that same week. “Throwing in two games is ... super-hard on the body, super-hard on your arm. The hitters, they already know what’s coming! They’ve seen everything.”
Kyra Reeds then tapped an easy grounder back to an exhausted Wilson, who tossed the ball to Erin Brown at first base to retire the side after being tagged for a numbing 13 runs.
In reply, M-CHS (7-2, 4-2 WSL) managed only Bri Comisky’s bases-loaded infield fly in the top of the second, plating runner Nizhoni Sam before junior Bella Meraz got Brown to pop foul to first base, then struck out Emily Davidovich.
Moved from third base to center field so Lizzie Likes could replace Wilson inside the circle, Comisky tracked down two threatening blasts, but Basalt (6-3, 6-1) still manufactured runs by Lindgren and Kiera Larson before Willow Stolley was cut down at the dish, attempting to score on the wild pitch that advanced Larson.
Meraz (W, CG; 3 IP, H, R, 0 BB, 2 K) then retired Frost’s 1-2-3 sticks in the visitors’ third inning, and the rout ended with Dietrich drawing a no-out, bases-loaded walk off Likes (IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 K, 6 BB) to score Grace Schrock.
“We were worn out, and I was thrilled with how our girls came out and played,” said Miller. “We knew it was going to be a ballgame. We know Cortez always fields a good team.”
“Maya and Bella, they’re great pitchers, but the difference was that we had strong defense behind them,” he said. “We knew Cortez hits well, and we knew we had to play good defense; without that, it doesn’t matter how good our pitching is.”
The Panthers learned that lesson in the opening game. Miscues helped Basalt take a 4-0 lead going into the bottom of the third when Montezuma-Cortez, aided by an Allie Kibel single and a Rylee Hickman double, struck back with three (Comisky, Brown, Kibel).
Basalt then managed to pack the sacks with two out in the top of the fourth, and Stolley came through with a vital 2-RBI single before Wilson got Meraz to bounce to Hickman. M-CHS’ shortstop then flipped the ball to Comisky at third, retiring Larson via the 6-5 fielder’s choice.
Playing third base, Stolley then made a fine play on a Jackson grounder, and Lindgren fanned Comisky and Brown to close out the fourth. Helped by a good catch of a dangerous Kibel fly, Lindgren also set the Lady Panthers down in order in the fifth, allowing only Wilson and Jackson to reach base the rest of the game.
“I seriously think if we had no errors that first game, the score probably would have been, I would say, 3-2, and we would have won,” said Frost. “Coming back after that, the girls seemed to me like they were mentally and physically ready to play a second game, and we just didn’t show it.”
“It just goes to show you that in this league, these girls are scrappy,” he said. “And it starts in practice.”
“They’d played Rifle on Thursday, I believe, and didn’t do too good (Rifle won 11-1 and 14-11). So we kind of came in with this expectation of ‘We beat Rifle, we can beat Basalt,’” Jackson said.
“They were undefeated, and we needed to come in and win,” said Basalt’s Lindgren. “This was definitely the hardest week of our season, and I think we did really well compared to how many games we just played,” she said. “My arm’s, like, ready to fall off.”
The ’Horns were to have some time off before their Sept. 10 non-leaguer against 4A Palisade. The Panthers will look to rebound Sept. 12, with a noon WSL doubleheader at Cedaredge.
“One of the things coach Hippo was talking about was how sometimes you need to lose,” said Jackson. “And how that loss opens our eyes: ‘This is what we need to work on,’ ‘This was our weak point.’ It’s nice to know we can lose, so that we can’t stop fighting. In Cedaredge ... we need to hit it pretty hard.”