Cain, Lady Panthers blank Catholic, 7-0
Sophia Cain recorded seven strikeouts and allowed only one hit, Sadie Morris drove in four runs and Kylie Clark collected three hits as Daviess County captured a 7-0 high school softball victory over Owensboro Catholic on Tuesday at DCHS.
It was the seventh consecutive win for the Lady Panthers (16-4, 5-0 9th District), who also secured the No. 1 seed in the postseason district tournament.
“That’s the best game she’s pitched all year,” DCHS coach John Biggs said of Cain, who allowed only one hit without any walks in the complete-game outing. “She was in command. We talked about some things to work on, and I think she really did a nice job of putting those into play — trying to get ahead on hitters and not trying to go to a full count. She had great command and kept leadoff hitters from getting on, so we were pleased with that part.”
DC struck for four runs in the bottom of the second inning, highlighted by Morris’s three-RBI home run. Briley Henry got on with a base hit, Makayla Rowan drew a walk, and Clark clubbed an RBI single — setting the stage for DC to build a 4-0 lead on the long ball to left field.
The Lady Panthers added three more runs in the fourth frame when Henry and Rowan drew consecutive walks, Clark singled, Morris hit an RBI sacrifice fly to left field, and Shelby Bennett drilled a two-run base hit to push DC to a 7-0 edge.
“I thought we had some really good at-bats,” Biggs added. “A couple of innings there, I thought maybe we didn’t see enough pitches — we had innings where we saw four pitches or three pitches — but in the innings we made them throw some pitches, we battled with two strikes.
“Overall, I thought that was one of our better games that we played all year. We talked about some defining moments of the season, and I thought tonight, we took a step in that direction.”
Clark finished 3-for-3 with two runs scored and an RBI for DC.
“She’s a warrior,” Biggs said of the freshman. “She gets up there and battles. I know at least one time she had an 0-2 count and probably another time where she had two strikes, and she ended up getting base hits for us. There’s no moment too big for her.”
Tyranda Stuart finished with the lone hit for Catholic (11-9, 2-2), which dropped its sixth straight game.
“We knew what kind of game we had going in,” Lady Aces coach Jeremy Phelps said. “It’s an opportunity to get better, and we’ve got to treat it that way every day, no matter who the opponent is. It’s no secret we’ve been on a downslide here lately, so we’re trying to fix that one game at a time. It’s not easy to do with this level of competition.
“We held them scoreless in all but two innings, like we did the last time we played them. You take a couple walks away and a couple fly balls, and it’s a totally different game. You don’t ever know, but that’s a good hitting team and a good pitching team over there.”
Both teams play again Thursday, with DC hosting district foe Owensboro while Catholic travels to face Madisonville-North Hopkins.
OWENSBORO CATHOLIC 000 000 0 — 0 1 0
DAVIESS COUNTY 040 300 x — 7 8 1
WP-Cain. LP-Robbins. HR-Morris (DC).
