A Shorter Game, but Great Potential

The April showers finally had mercy on the Tiger’s softball season, by stopping just long enough for them to play against Martin Luther King JR Magnet High School on a cloudy Wednesday afternoon. The MLK Royals jumped out to a great start by taking tough walks and moving along the bases aggressively, going up 6-0 in the top of the first. The Tiger’s immediately responded! They didn’t get down on themselves, but had a tremendous inning with great hits, aggressive running, and worked the pitcher higher into the pitch count! The Tiger’s battled back 6-6 at the bottom of the first. The next two innings the Tiger’s were able to keep the Royals from another strong run and found ways to combat the Royal’s strategy of squeeze and sacrifice bunt plays, but offensively couldn’t find that same swagger due to some tough calls and inconsistent base running. While the Tigers would have made a push in the bottom of the 4th, the game was timed out, before the Tigers could finish out the inning, leaving the office score 7-10 in three innings, giving MLK the win. 

Amelie Soslow ‘25 had herself a game with some great defensive highlights. In left field she helped get the Tiger’s out of a tough first inning with a third out, pop fly catch and then made multiple great throw downs from left field all the way to home where Caroline Keiper ‘25 tried to get the tag outs, while she only got one out officially, Amelie’s other throws were spot on and so close! Another crazy highlight came from Asauda Radford ‘25, who was playing shortstop and tracked a foul ball that was behind third base and made an excellent and well timed catch! The pitcher of the game, Alena Ellis ‘25 threw a total of 115 pitches with a 47 strike percentage and 2 strike outs. Along with a collective effort from the Tiger’s defense, MLK only earned 4 hits! 

On the other side of the field Jessica Penilton ‘24 helped lead the Tigers to some great opportunities offensively with two RBIs and a double in the first inning. Alena Ellis ‘25 also showed out with a great double and Yvonne Thomas continues to be consistent going for .500 at the plate. Along with some great hits, 4 Tigers showed their toughness and stood their ground in the batter’s box, earning 4 HBP (hit by pitches), which means 4 free bases! 

Another game where the Tigers made some exceptional plays along with some unfortunate routine errors. The good news is that the Tiger’s errors stat is trending downward game-to-gamee and every game different players along with the consistent players step up with great plays, great leadership, or great hits. As our skills grow we will have more opportunities to practice putting outs together and then stringing innings together, and then those little steps will lead us to being a better team than before! Let’s keep competing together and being the best team we can be, go Tigers!