Continental’s Raegen Clemens receives the throw as Miller City’s Anna Niese slides into the base during Tuesday’s game at Continental. See more high school softball photos at LimaScores.com.
Richard Parrish | The Lima News
CONTINENTAL — Miller City celebrated a share of the Putnam County League title after the Wildcats held off Continental 7-3 Tuesday.
With the win, Miller City improves to 13-7 for the season and remain unbeaten in the PCL at 5-0. The Wildcats can snare the crown outright with a win Friday against Ottoville. Continental dips to 3-2 in league play and 6-10 on the season. Columbus Grove also has one loss in the PCL.
“This is definitely a good feeling,” said Miller City head coach Beau Pester about securing a PCL crown. “These girls have worked hard and they have worked hard for a long time and its great to see them have a little reward for all their hard work.
“I think a lot of it (success) is the seniors for one. We have three seniors who keep it fun but also they keep people accountable and I mean they are talented too. They can hit. They can field and we try to stay out of their way.”
Miller City’s 5-run outburst in the second inning proved to be the difference as the Wildcats took advantage of timely hitting and Pirate fielding miscues to jump out to the 5-0 advantage after two innings.
“That has been the morale of the story for us year,” said Continental head coach Leva Aguirre, concerning the fielding miscues. “Our pitcher does throw strikes yet she is hit-able and we haven’t figured out how to get threw a game with a couple of very big errors.
“I am very proud of how they battled. That is something that we have improved on from last year. Last year in a game like this we would figured out to be in a bigger pinch than we had but we were here and we were in it. We were playing for a PCL title so I was very proud of them tonight.”
In that decisive offensive outburst, the Wildcats Jordan Schnipke, Taygen Rieman and Anna Niese all delivering RBI hits.
Miller City tacked on runs in the fifth and sixth inning to go up 7-2 after five.
For the game, Schnipke went 3 for 4 with 2 RBI and a run and Niese finished the game going 2 for 4 with 2 runs and an RBI. Taylor Wilhelm had two hits and drove in two runs. Taylor Michel had three hits and scored a run.
Pester added scoring five runs early was instrumental in getting the win.
“That was a big,” Pester said. “We took advantage of a couple of miscues but we had timely hitting against a good pitcher and that is how you when a close game.”
Continental responded with two runs of its own in the top of the third inning, with Knowles collecting a triple to drive in a run and then scored on a ground out, but the Wildcats, scoring ended there.
Pester pointed out holding Continental to two in that inning was a key to the win.
“We did a good job of keeping that momentum and stopping them from scoring more in that next inning and then coming back in and hitting. That is what we have been preaching all year and they did a good job of that tonight.”
Wildcat pitcher Isabelle Reyna put in a strong outing on the mound as she scattered eight hits over seven innings while fanning seven and walking one.
With some help from her defensive, Isabel Reyna showed poise in the sixth and seventh inning where she worked her way out of Continental threats and a bases-loaded jam with one out in the seventh to secure the win.
“Belle has been throwing good all year and they have a lot of good too and she was mixing pitches and keeping them off-balance and the defense came up when they had to. It wasn’t the cleanest game but they made the plays we had to make and it was good to win.”
Reach Jose Nogueras at 567-242-0468.
