BANGOR ? Even though the Brewer softball team had been on a bit of a pitching roll lately, having allowed just two runs in its last three games, the Witches were very wary of a potential power surge from Bangor?on Thursday.
But for every Rams? rally, the Witches were quick to respond and they rode that offensive prowess to a 10-7 victory over their arch-rivals as four Brewer players enjoyed multi-hit games.
Two of of them ? Morgan Small and Jordan Nickerson ? combined for five hits and three RBIs out of the eighth and ninth spots in the lineup as the undefeated Witches, the top-ranked team in Eastern Maine Class A, ran their record to 11-0.
?It showed that everybody can hit and we have a really deep team, so wherever coach puts them everybody?s ready to play,? said Small, who had three singles and a run scored while Nickerson had two doubles and three RBIs.
Bangor had its five-game winning streak halted and falls to 8-3.
The Rams spotted Brewer a 1-0 lead in the first inning, but Sadie Redman reached Witches? ace Emily Cox in the bottom half, hitting an inside-the-park home run down the rightfield line.
Cox walked the game?s first two batters before Redman?s homer, but she managed to escape further damage even though the Rams loaded the bases.
?I think the team was really jacked for the game so they were really uptight,? said Brewer coach Skip Estes.
The Witches? hitting wasn?t, as they banged out 14 hits while opening up a 7-3 lead with three run-rallies in the second and third. Nickerson drove in two runs with a double in the second and another with a third-inning double, while Lindsay Houp contributed a run-scoring single in the third.
Nickerson had struggled at the plate earlier in the spring, but has become the Witches? hottest hitter.
?Jordan is hitting .750 since that first hit she got, four, five games ago,? Estes said. ?She?s been just cranking the ball.?
Cox did settle down to some degree after the Witches gave her a lead, allowing only Jade Baumrind?s RBI single on a third-inning bunt through the second, third and fourth innings, using her offspeed pitches effectively and painting the corners.
?Emily again had a great curveball on the outside corner and great changeup,? Bangor coach Don Stanhope said.
Stanhope?s Rams eventually adjusted to those pitches in the fifth, scoring two runs on a Taylor Lewis groundout to second and Kamdra Prendergast RBI single.
After that, Estes turned to Morgan Haradon, and she retired the final two Rams to escape further damage.
That allowed Brewer to tack on a couple more runs in the sixth on a Cox base hit and another in the seventh on Amy Curry?s?double.
Bangor mounted a last-ditch rally in the seventh, with Kristen Hennigan driving in a run with a single, but she was thrown out at the plate on Taylor Lewis? single to left, and Prendergast lined into a double play to end it.
The two seventh-inning hits were the only ones Haradon gave up in earning the save.
?She was on the bench and just hitting the whole time and she just came in and finished the game the way she should,? said Small.
Bangor showed once again that it has one of the most torrid lineups in the state by scoring 12 runs in two games against Brewer, compared to a combined seven in the Witches? other nine games.
?Our kids had a good plan and they stuck with it, ?Stanhope said. ?We had some real strong aggressive at-bats.?
Houp finished 3-for-4 with three singles, two runs and an RBI for Brewer while Curry had a single, double, RBI and run.
Lewis and Prengergast each collected two singles for Bangor, with each driving in a run while Lust and Baumrind also had a couple of singles.
Source: http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/05/19/sports/brewer-softball-team-outslugs-bangor-10-7/
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