LCC’s Melana Badea makes a play at shortstop on Thursday night at Lima Senior as the T Birds and the Spartans went head to head.
Nate Reynolds | The Lima News
LIMA — Lima Senior was within one run of Lima Central Catholic going into the fifth inning of its softball match-up with the Thunderbirds on Thursday.
But LCC scored twice in the top of the fifth inning, then got five more runs in the seventh for a 13-5 win over the Spartans.
The win was LCC’s fourth in 13 games this season. Lima Senior is 1-9.
“The bats came alive there at the end. It was a little bit of a slow start but hats off to Lima Senior they made some nice plays. We made a few mental errors to begin the game. I just told them to keep your heads in it and we’ll clean those up,” LCC coach Meredith Shepherd said.
Lima Senior coach Rob Nelson said, “After the fifth inning, what seems to ail us at times, especially with such a young squad (no seniors and one junior) is we make some mental mistakes in the field and we make some physical mistakes and the other team starts getting some crooked numbers and then it’s kind of like it’s downhill.”
After LCC scored two runs on just one hit in the top of the first inning, Lima Senior responded by getting singles from the first five hitters it sent to the plate in the bottom of that inning – Mallory Gipson, Angie Kohlhofer, Kaydence Holbrook, Amyah King and Arianna Edens.
The first four of those batters scored to give Lima Senior a 4-2 lead. In the top of the second, LCC got four runs on only two hits, to regain the lead at 6-4.
Olivia Venturella and Emiley Martin started that rally with walks and eventually, both scored on the same wild pitch. Melana Badea tripled and scored when Carolina Kill reached base on an error. Emma Skinner’s single scored Kill.
Lima Senior cut the lead to 6-5 in the bottom of the fourth inning when Avah Dawson singled, Kohlhofer singled and pinch-runer Adriana Good scored on an error.
LCC’s Anna Shultz drove in two runs with a single down the right-field line in the top of the fifth to make it 8-5.
LCC scored five more runs in the top of the seventh and Skinner, who took over the pitching duties one batter into the bottom of the fourth inning, retired nine of the last 10 Lima Senior hitters she faced.
“This game was competitive. Ada was competitive. Columbus Grove was competitive. We hope we can keep games competitive into the later innings and hopefully, we can make the right plays,” Nelson said.
Badea was 3 for 4 with two triples and a double and scored three runs for LCC. Shultz was 2 for 3. Kohlhofer and Holbrook both were 2 for 4 for Lima Senior.
LCC 13, Lima Senior 5
Score by innings:
Lima Central Catholic 240 020 5 — 13 8 2
Lima Senior 400 100 0 — 5 8 4
WP — Emma Skinner; LP — Angie Kohlhofer
2B — Melana Badea (LCC)
3B — Melana Badea (LCC)
Records: LCC 4-9; Lima Senior 1-9.
