Semoball

Perryville softball snaps losing skid with pair of wins over Cape Central, East Carter

Perryville's Alyson Stortz fires a pitch against Cape Central on Tuesday at Southeast Softball Complex in Cape Girardeau.
Megan Burke ~ mburke@semissourian.com

After a rocky start to the season, the Perryville softball team snapped a four-game losing streak on Tuesday with a pair of wins over East Carter and Cape Central.

The Pirates won a 19-16 slugfest over the Redbirds in their opening game, then shut out the Tigers 5-0 in the nightcap at Southeast Softball Complex.

“We finally saw our bats come alive more today, and I feel like that's what kind of pushed us over the edge,” Perryville coach Lilly Chapman said. “Last night against Windsor, we lost the game 2-0, but they only had seven hits whereas we had 13 hits that game. We just could not push runs across. … Today, we were finally able to string enough together to score some runs.”

While the Pirates won both of their games, the Tigers were unable to do so. In addition to their loss to Perryville, Central was beaten 15-11 by East Carter.

Although the season hasn’t started out very strong for the Tigers from a win-loss standpoint, coach Alexis Estes is happy with her team’s development.

“I've seen a lot of progress. We have come a long way since last year, and we've come a long way even from our first practice this season,” Estes said. “Right now, our win-loss record doesn't show it. But if you come out to a game and watch us play, and you know how we've been in the past, you will see nothing but improvement. I foresee a lot of positivity in our future, and I think our win-loss record will begin to show that. It's only a matter of time.”

In the matchup between the two teams, Central kept things close for a majority of the game as Perryville held a 1-0 lead entering the sixth inning.

Then things got away from the Tigers.

Senior Breanna White smacked a leadoff triple to start the sixth, which opened the floodgates for Perryville.

“It was a missile,” Chapman said. “It was straight out to right-center field, and I think it one-hopped the fence. It took them a while to get to it. She did great. She hit a couple of home runs for us last year but she didn't play summer ball, so I expected her to have to knock off a little bit of rust. But we've really been doing some fine tuning with her swing and I think we finally got it honed in tonight.”

The Pirates put their first run on the board when sophomore Rhylee Wengert reached on an error by the Tigers’ right fielder which scored White. Following back-to-back walks, fellow sophomore Caroline Gremaud grounded into a fielder’s choice to score another run. Perryville would add two more runs when junior Jenna Brewer reached on another Central error to take a decisive 5-0 lead.

“I think what we need to do is just work on pushing through those last few innings,” Estes said. “We were really strong in the beginning, and then at the end, we let one or two things get by. We’ve just got to minimize those errors and minimize those good hits from other teams.”

Perryville’s Alyson Stortz was a big source of Central’s problems at the plate, as the senior allowed just one hit while striking out 15 Tigers in a complete-game shutout. In addition to her pitching, Stortz went 2-for-4 at the plate with an RBI.

“Alyson is a huge piece of our team,” Chapman said. “She usually bats second or third in the lineup. I think last year she was batting around .400. No home runs, but she's very good at hitting gaps.”

Wengert earned the first win of her career in the circle against the Redbirds earlier in the day, despite allowing 11 hits and 12 runs (eight earned) in the Pirates’ 19-16 win. Chapman was pleased with the sophomore’s effort although she felt the defense wasn’t quite up to par.

“I started with her last year and she didn't have much pitching experience,” Chapman said. “We've been really working on it and she is now able to consistently throw strikes. She doesn't have a lot of movement on her pitches just yet, but we've got her throwing consistent strikes.

“That defensive factor comes in when she's pitching. She's going to give them strikes to hit, so it really shows what things we need to fix with our defense a lot of times. That's why it was a pretty high-scoring game, but she got her first win so it's super exciting.”

The Tigers came close to a victory over East Carter as well, aided by a pair of triples from senior Keri Williams and an inside-the-park home run from fellow senior Ki Bogan.

“So far they've proven to score a lot of runs for us,” Estes said of Williams and Bogan. “They get on base and that's exactly what we need to score and win ball games.”

Perryville (3-4) looks to continue its winning ways when the Pirates host 3-2 Jackson on Thursday.

Cape Central (1-3) will begin play in the Notre Dame Softballfest on Friday with a doubleheader against Van Buren and host Notre Dame before facing Kelly and Doniphan on Saturday.

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