Silver Valley down but not out

YERMO — Questionable calls, gusting winds, and the Desert Christian bats were too much for the Silver Valley High School softball team on Tuesday.

“We just didn’t hit the ball as well as we should have,” coach Kevin Mintun said. “The game was just a bad performance overall.”

The Knights offensive barrage began in the first inning and continued throughout. Desert Christian racked up 13 hits by the final out.
In the first inning, Caitlin Aikenhead ripped a triple to right field for the Knights. The following batter was walked, and Sara Sutherland’s basehit opened the floodgates for a 2-0 opening inning.

During the next few innings the Knights clung to a two run lead. Sutherland did more damage to the Trojans with a two run RBI giving them a 4-0 lead in the third. The Trojans answered back, but their rally, with bases loaded, was killed in the third inning by a controversial out at second base.

“The team just kept coming after us,” Mintun said. “They are a well coached team, and some of those calls that we needed to go our way just hurt us.”

The Knights took two more runs in the fourth, followed by a three run inning in the fifth, and made the score 9-2. Silver Valley attempted to rally on two occasions when Shannon Fieste and Catherine Bennett scored on basehits to make the game 9-4.

Although each team scored two more run,s another rally was killed when the umpire failed to call what may have been an illegal pitch.

Losing to Desert Christian put the Trojans out of contention for a three way tie for first place. In their Friday season finale against Boran, the Trojans can still finish in a tie for second if they win, which could give them a favorable pairing in the opening round.

“We didn’t play as well as we could have,” Mintun said of his team’s performance. “We just weren’t able to have things go our way today, and some games are just like that. You also have to credit them; they played an extremely good game from start to finish.”



Desert Christian 202 204 1 11 9 0
Silver Valley 001 102 2 6 13 0

WP J Kaechkor; LP: Negin. 2B: None; 3B: Aikenhead