By Sedrick Bolton III September 6, 2022
JONESBORO This game featured a Jonesboro team that has not played in nearly two weeks versus a Morrow team looking for their first regional game win.
Pitcher Cayla Crooks of the Lady Cardinals put her pitching skills on display. She did not let a runner get on base with three straight strikeouts, quickly giving Jonesboro the opportunity to score in the bottom of the first.
The Lady Cardinals walked to first base off balls and seized any opportunity to steal bases, whether it was errors from the infielders or quick thinking. Seniors Amiya Caldwell and Qualacia Farmer recorded two RBIs by hitting doubles into center field. Morrow caught a couple runners stealing bases and a strikeout to end the inning down 0-5.
The Lady Cardinals continued to build off their momentum from the first inning in the second. Crooks prevented the Lady Mustangs from scoring with her calculated pitches.
"I just remembered the batters and what did they do before they came up to bat," said Crooks when asked how she went about pitching in the game. "I remembered ' okay if she went outside and hit the ball then I'm going to go inside on her and try to strike her out'".
Jonesboro scored four additional runs and closed out the inning with a 9-0 lead. This lead may have caused complacency in the Lady Cardinals, giving Morrow a chance to control the game.
Junior Hannah Russell of the Lady Mustangs scored the first run for Morrow which energized the team. Despite being down, they continued supporting one another and celebrating any hits or stolen bases. Freshman Seivyn Fletcher also recorded a run in top of the third.
Morrow began creeping up the scoreboard while halting any progress Jonesboro tried to do. From the third to the sixth inning, Jonesboro scored only one run compared to Morrow's five. Heading into the seventh inning, the Lady Mustangs went from down as many as nine to five.
Following a strikeout, catcher Jada Godson of Morrow stole home to reduce the deficit to four with a score of 10-6. With a runner on base, sophomore Parys Sutton hits a ground ball, but confusion within the Jonesboro infielders led to Sutton running to third base and another run scored for Morrow.
Sutton made an attempt to steal home but got caught and closed the final inning 10-7.
Even with the win, Jonesboro still have things to improve on going forward.
"We had a bunch of mental errors on the bases and mental errors with base runners on base," said first year Head Coach Matt Garner. "It's just the little things we're going to continue to clean up and look to get better at".
Jonesboro improves to 2-4 on the season while Morrow drops to 1-4. These two team will face each other again in Mustang territory September 29.
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