GILMAN SOFTBALL - Not perfect, but Pirates get 8-4 win
GILMAN SOFTBALL
Still early in the softball season, the Gilman Pirates remained one of just two Eastern Cloverbelt teams that are unbeaten in conference play Tuesday with an 8-4 road win at Spencer.
It wasn’t a particularly sharp performance, according to head coach Brian Phelps, but the Pirates will gladly take the win, found some things to focus on in practice Wednesday and will go from there as the busy part of the schedule hits, assuming the weather will finally cooperate.
“We definitely left some runs on the bases,” Phelps said. “And we gave up some outs that we shouldn’t have that made it tougher on our pitcher.”
That being said, the Pirates did bang out 14 hits off Spencer pitcher Berklie Ireland and got the job done late, turning a tight 3-1 game into a more comfortable five-run margin by the seventh inning.
The Rockets scored once in the bottom of the first. Gilman tied it in the second and took a 3-1 lead in the third on a tworun home run by senior Abby Chaplinski.
It stayed that way until the sixth when the Pirates finally broke through with a three-run rally, highlighted by a two-run triple by Raygen Soper. Spencer got two back in the bottom half, but Gilman countered that with two more in the top of the seventh to go up 8-3.
Soper and Kenlyn Kroeplin both had three-for-four days at the plate for Gilman, who is 2-0 in league play and 4-3 overall. Kayleigh James was two for three with a walk, Chaplinski was two for three and added a walk and Scarlett Stuner was two for four.
Stuner pitched all seven innings. Spencer (0-2, 1-5) put the ball in play and had 10 hits. All four runs were earned. Stuner struck out four and walked two.
Ireland struck out seven Gilman batters.
“It was a game we felt we should have won,” Phelps said. “The good thing is we did that and we still have lots of room for better performance.”
Gilman (4-3 overall) next heads to Loyal-Greenwood Friday for a good conference matchup. The Pirates are scheduled for non-conference play at Clayton Monday before hosting a struggling Owen-Withee squad Tuesday at 5 p.m. and visiting winless Colby-Abbotsford on May 1.
