Behind 13 hits and taking advantage of six Nation Ford errors, the Catawba Ridge softball team handily defeated the Falcons in a 16-0 shutout Monday evening.
Catawba Ridge relied on timely hitting and strong pitching from Chloe Burger to improve to 4-0 on the season. The game was Nation Ford’s first game of the season.
The Copperheads are coming off a three-game tournament in Lexington where they faced some strong competition in teams such as Lugoff-Elgin and Lexington, and came away with wins in each game.
“The preseason games against good teams prepared us,” said Catawba Ridge head coach Michael Kidd. “We are where we need to be right now.”
Nation Ford struggled in several aspects against Catawba Ridge making six errors, three of them coming in the first inning as the Copperheads opened the game scoring three runs on just one hit and taking advantage of the Falcons’ miscues.
Catawba Ridge put two more on the board in the third inning off two hits with the help of an RBI double from Braylon Lawrence. Lawrence was one of two Copperhead batters to go 3-4, as she drove in two runs in the game
The Copperheads added two more runs in the fourth and fifth to take a comfortable 9-0 lead. In the fifth, Jenna Gardner launched a solo home run, the first of two home runs in the game for Catawba Ridge.
Catawba Ridge blew the game open even more in the sixth inning scoring seven runs on five hits, including a three run home run by Sophia Barr in a pinch hitting role.
“They are good,” said Nation Ford head coach Craig Brown. “Let’s not sugarcoat it. We made too many mistakes. We will be fine. Hopefully, this is a learning experience.”
There were some bright spots for Nation Ford as Abigail Loser and Ava Scheier each went 1-2 in the game for the only two hits in the game for the Falcons.
In the circle for Catawba Ridge, Burger went six innings and struck out 16 batters, while walking four and allowing just the two hits.
Catawba Ridge next travels to Clover on Wednesday, March 8, while Nation Ford hits the road to take on Indian Land also on March 8.
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep
