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By Steve Carpenter
HCC Sports Information Director
Thursday, April 9, 2009
About the only way
for a pair of pitchers both tossing two-hit shutouts can be
overshadowed is when a player gets seven hits in a doubleheader.
That’s what happened
on Thursday when sophomore Ashley Cushinberry went 7 for 8 and
scored five runs to support a pair of shutouts tossed by sophomore
pitchers Courtney Johnson and Kelli Walker in the Hutchinson
Community College softball team’s Jayhawk Conference doubleheader
sweep of Independence on Thursday at Fun Valley.
Johnson started
things off with a two-hit shutout in a 4-0 Lady Dragon victory in
Game 1. Walker took a perfect game one out into the fifth inning
before allowing a pair of infield hits as the Lady Dragons run-ruled
the Pirates 8-0 in five innings in the nightcap.
But it was
Cushinberry who shined on Thursday.
After grounding out
in her first at-bat in Game 1, Cushinberry, HCC’s leadoff hitter,
singled seven-straight times, pushing her batting average to a
season-high .414.
She went 3 for 4 in
Game 1 with two runs scored and 4 for 4 with three runs scored in
Game 2. Cushinberry also stole her 10th base of the season and made
two dazzling catches in right field.
Hutchinson (15-17)
is now 11-7 in the Jayhawk Conference Division II. Thursday opened a
stretch of five doubleheaders in six days. The Lady Dragons will
play host to Johnson County at 4 p.m. on Friday and Fort Scott at 2
p.m. on Saturday.
GAME 1 RECAP (HCC
4, Independence 0) -
BOXSCORE
Johnson was in
complete control through three innings, retiring the first nine
batters she faced. She allowed a leadoff walk in the fourth inning
that almost came back to haunt her. With runners at the corners and
one out, Indy’s Callie Johnson lifted a fly to right-center that
centerfielder Jessica Glenn caught. Glenn then threw out Amber
Jones, who was tagging up, at the plate to end the inning.
Johnson allowed just
one baserunner in the final three innings.
Johnson (6-5) tossed
her fifth complete game and second shutout of the season. She tied
her season low for hits allowed with two. Johnson struck out four
and walked just one.
Offensively, the
Lady Dragons had eight hits, but didn’t break through until the
third inning. Cushinberry singled and was driven in by Jessica
Glenn’s two-out double for a 1-0 lead.
HCC didn’t give
Johnson any more breathing room until the fifth when Kelli Dennis’s
two-out single scored Cushinberry and Chelsey Hargett delivered a
two-run double to right center, just out of the reach of a diving
Lauren Amyx that scored Glenn and Dennis for a 4-0 lead.
Freshman Megan Meigs
had the only other extra-base hit for HCC in Game 1.
GAME 2 RECAP (HCC
8, Independence 0)
-
BOXSCORE
Walker surpassed the
start of Johnson in Game 1 by retiring the first 14 Indy batters she
faced. Her bid for a second career collegiate no-hitter was broken
up one out into the fifth inning when Kaitlyn Bennett reached on an
infield single.
Walker struck out
three and walked none in her five-inning complete game, her seventh
complete game and second shutout of the season. Seven of the 15 outs
recorded by Walker were groundball outs.
Offensively, the
Lady Dragons gave Walker plenty of support with an 11-hit attack.
In addition to
Cushinberry’s 4-for-4 performance, sophomore Briana Elman had her
fourth three-hit game of the season, going 3 for 4 with a run scored
and the game-ending RBI in the fifth when her double just inside the
first-base bag drove in Brooke Hollis with the eighth run of the
game, invoking the run-rule.
Glenn also went 3
for 3 with a double, two runs scored and three RBIs. Dennis drove
two runs.
HCC scored in four
of its five offensive innings, including a four-run fourth inning.
GAME NOTES
– HCC second baseman Megan Meigs was injured when she and
Independence’s Kaitlyn Bennett collided on a pop-up in the fifth
inning of Game 2. Meigs is alright, but was removed from the game
and replaced by freshman Lindsay Doyle, who was seeing her first
action of the season. Doyle fouled out in her only at-bat of the
game. … Briana Elman is on a tear going 25 of 47 (.532) in her last
12 games. She has hit safely in 11 of those 12 games. |
