Bright future

New Madrid County Central's Emma Karafa slides in safely at third base under the tag of Gideon third baseman Brook Hutchison on Monday afternoon in New Madrid.
(Photo by David Jenkins, Staff)

sd_sports@yahoo.com

NEW MADRID -- The future looks bright for the New Madrid County Central softball program.

The Lady Eagles played a majority of underclassmen Monday afternoon as NMCC easily defeated the visiting Gideon Lady Bulldogs 18-1.

"I've been doing this for 18 years and from top to bottom this is the best freshman class we've had," said NMCC coach Steve Rogers. "I've had good individuals but not seven or eight like we've got. We've got a real good freshman class and we started about five of them today."

Lady Eagle fans had to look no further than the mound to see the future as freshman Michaela Townsend got the start. Townsend pitched all three innings, giving up only one hit and one unearned run. She struck out two and walked three en route to earning the second varsity win of her career.

"Michaela threw a good ballgame," Rogers said. "She was off just a little bit with her control today but our defense was good."

While Townsend was shutting down Gideon, NMCC was having no trouble scoring runs. The Lady Eagles used six walks, good baserunning and several wild pitches to plate six runs without collecting a hit in the first inning.

NMCC began to swing the bats better in the second inning, scoring 12 runs off seven hits, including a shot to center field by Kelly Robey that hit the fence, inches from a home run. Robey got a double on the play.

Freshman Sarah Ash was credited with an inside the park home run in the inning as she rounded the bases after hitting the ball in the gap, rolling all the way to the fence.

"It took us a while to get the bats going," Rogers said. "Their pitcher was a little wild, but once we got our bats going we put a lot of balls in play and we ran the bases extremely well. It was a good win for us."

With the win, NMCC improves to 9-0 and will travel to Meadow Heights today and will take on Portageville on Thursday with a game against Kennett looming next week.

"We've got some tough games coming up," Rogers said. "Meadow Heights I know has a good ball club and we're going there tomorrow. Portageville always plays us tough and that is a big rivalry. Of course, we have Kennett next week and that is the one we've been pointing towards. We've still got some ball ahead of us."

Gideon 0 0 1 -- 1

NMCC 6(12)X -- 18

WP -- Michaela Townsend (2-0). LP -- Christine Marlow. 2B -- (N) Emma Karafa, Dallas Campbell, Kelly Robey. 3B -- Hunter Hewitt. HR -- Sarah Ash.