Lady Hawks softball improves to 4-0
Thompson Falls pitching struck out 14 Sandpoint, Idaho batters this past Friday, giving the Lady Hawks a sweep of their two-game road trip and keeping their season record unblemished.
The Lady Hawks improved their record to 4-0 as the 2024 fastpitch softball season heads toward the meat of the schedule.
Earlier in the week they blasted Eureka 17-0 in the Lady Lions home park.
Friday T Falls rallied for a pair of runs in the top of the seventh inning to secure a come-from-behind 8-7 victory over the Sandpoint Bulldogs in Idaho.
Olivia Fitchett drove in three runs with a triple in the fourth inning to overcome a 2-0 Sandpoint lead. However, in the bottom of the fourth, the home town Bulldogs struck back with a pair of runs to reclaim the lead, 4-3.
T Falls erased that lead in the top of inning number five, leaving the game knotted at 4-all.
Fitchett entered the game in the fifth inning in relief of T Falls starting pitcher Sarah Koskela, who struck out nine Sandpoint hitters and surrendered just two earned runs in her four innings of work.
Fitchett closed out the game, striking out five hitters while walking three in her three innings on the mound.
T Falls got a pair of runs in the top of the sixth to retake the lead at 6-4. The Bulldogs showed they were not done in the bottom half of sixth when they plated three runs to go ahead 7-6 with one inning to play.
Then, in the top of the seventh, Lady Hawk first baseman Annalise Fairbank doubled in a pair of runs to swing the lead back to T Falls.
Fitchett shut down Sandpoint in the bottom half of the seventh to preserve the one-run win over the Bulldogs.
B. Cork and Addie Traver had two hits each for the Lady Hawks, who slapped out eight hits on the afternoon. The Hawks also got a triple from left fielder Callie McGinnis. The Bulldogs got a pair of doubles each from K. McCown and B. Lancaster.
Earlier in the week, in a game versus Lincoln County High in Eureka, T Falls made quick work of the Lady Lions after taking a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning.
Fitchett held Eureka scoreless in the bottom of the first then watched as her teammates plated eight runs in the top of inning number two. They duplicated that offensive outburst in their half of the third, scoring another eight runs to take a 17-0 lead over Eureka and put the Mercy Rule into effect.
Fitchett shut out the Lions in the second and third innings, invoking the rule which says a team behind by 15 or more runs is the winner if the game has gone at least two and a half innings and the team behind has had one last at bat when the score exceeded the established 15-run advantage.
Fitchett struck out two and yielded no hits in her three innings on the bump. She did not walk a batter.
Koskela, meanwhile, had three hits in three at bats and scored two runs to lead the Lady Hawks offense. Koskela had a double and four total bases for the shortened game.
McKenzie Robinson was also three-for-three for T Falls, with one RBI and a pair of runs scored. All nine Lady Hawks in the starting line up had at least one RBI, while the team had five hits in scoring 17. T Falls batters walked 13 times in the game.
The Lady Hawks travel to Missoula this weekend as part of a multi-team tournament. They will face Three Fork and Ennis Friday at 2pm and 4pm respectively. The Hawks play Manhattan Saturday, also in Missoula.