Behind the pitching of junior Haley Secor and a huge six-run second inning, the Plano Lady Reapers defeated Serena 11-1 in a non-conference game Monday afternoon.
Secor scattered just four hits while striking out seven and first basemen Christina Narciso was a perfect 3-for-3 at the plate with a triple and four RBI to help the hosts roll to their sixth straight victory.
"Our bats have started waking up lately now that the weather has warmed up and Haley, when they would get a good hit, she would bear down and get the next hitter," said PHS head coach Bill Sanford. "We hit the ball and if they made an error someone else would get a big hit right behind it. I think we had nine hits and there were a couple cheap ones, but there was a few that were hit right on the screws."
The Lady Reapers (8-3-1) scored a pair of runs in the first on Narciso's two-run triple. Courtney Weeks had led off with a single and Heather Dulaney's sacrifice bunt was mishandled by Serena pitcher Rachel Shope, allowing both runners to be safe. After a popout and wild pitch, Narciso belted a drive all the way to the left field fence to give Plano a 2-0 advantage.
"(Plano) has very solid hitters," said SHS assistant coach Megan Thomas, filling in for head coach Kelly Baker in the week following the birth of the Bakers' son last Thursday. "Rachel was putting the ball in there and they were putting it into play. She did a good job, but we made some key errors behind her that really
helped them out as well."
It was indeed errors that in part cost the Lady Huskers in the second inning, but also some good Plano hitting as well. Roxy Mosca led off with a infield single for Plano, followed by errors around a strikeout to load the bases. Shope was able to get the second out of the inning on another strikeout, but Secor's rocket into left scored two. Missy Haws added another two-run single in the inning and Mosca RBI single to push the lead to 8-0. Plano scored three more in the third on a RBI single by Secor and a two-run single by Narciso.
"I told the girls that Serena was a good ballclub and we would have to be ready and they were," said Sanford. "We are in a good spot right now, we've won six in a row and even early on in the season when our record was 2-3, this is where we thought we could be."
The Lady Huskers broke the shutout in the fourth when Krista Eddy singled to left-center to start the inning. Eddy moved to second on an Emily Zemanek sacrifice, to third on a groundout and scored on a wild pitch. Secor fanned the final hitter to move her record to 5-2.
Besides Eddy, Miranda Murley, Ashley Vatland and Shope also had hits for the Lady Huskers who fell to 3-6-1 on the season.
"(Secor) is definitely a good pitcher and we have been struggling with our bats off and on all year," Thomas said. "I can see some of the bats starting to come around that weren't there at the start of the season, so now it is just a matter of us finding some holes and making a little more solid contact."