GREENFIELD — Thursday’s season opener went pretty much exactly how Greenfield-Central expected it to.
The defense was strong. The offense struggled at times.
The Cougars scored three runs early and then saw their offense slow down. The defense and pitching kept them ahead, and the hosts held on for a 4-0 win at home.
“We saw kind of what we thought we would see,” Greenfield-Central coach Jason Stewart said. “We thought our defense would be pretty good. Our defense was unbelievable tonight. Our infield played fantastic, we turned two big double plays. Keryna (Barrett) was a beast at short. We got good pitching out of Lexi (Rankin). We knew we were going to struggle offensively. That’s just where we are right now. That’s what we’ve got to work on, get better at.”
The Greenfield-Central offense didn’t need much time to get rolling. After a walk to leadoff hitter Kensie Bradley in the bottom of the first inning, Jessie Rankin singled for the first hit of the season from the Cougars. After Sam Kihega reached on a fielder’s choice, Lexi Rankin doubled to bring across her sister. Emily Francis followed with a two-RBI single, rounding out the first-inning scoring and jump-starting the Cougars to a 3-0 lead.
That would be most of the offense for Greenfield-Central until the fifth inning, when a pair of singles and an error led to the fourth and final run, driven in by Zoe Kesler.
They wouldn’t need any more than the first-inning runs, though. Senior Lexi Rankin struck out 11 in the game, allowing nine hits and walking two in the complete-game shutout.
“She threw a lot of pitches. If she can minimize her pitches, she can be pretty darn good,” Stewart said. “She’s just got to dial in her location a little bit. She pitched out of jams — that’s what you want pitchers to do. Big spots, she found ways to get strikeouts or roll ground balls, let her defense help, and gave us a chance. That’s what we want.”
Richmond looked to be in position to trim into the lead in the fourth inning before a slick double play helped the Cougars escape trouble. With the first two runners of the inning notching singles, the Red Devils had two on and nobody out. A hard grounder to first base was scooped up by Macy Francis, who stepped on the bag and threw to second in time for the tag and a double play. Lexi Rankin struck out the next batter, keeping the shutout intact.
“That’s a tough one to turn,” Stewart said of Macy Francis’ double play. “Once she makes a good play fielding the ball, not only do you have to make the throw to second, you’ve got to dodge the runner and your shortstop has to focus enough to catch the ball. She put it right where it had to be and Keryna fielded it and put a great tag on it.”
The Cougars picked up the season-opening win despite being outhit by Richmond, nine to eight. The low score is something Stewart expects to see from his team as they push forward without injured No. 1 pitcher Madge Weidner and third basemen Caroline Gibson.
“We’ll take it,” Stewart said of the win. “It’s going to be a grind, that’s what I told the girls. With what we’re missing and what we’ve got to fix, we’re going to have to find ways to win. We’re not going to win games 12-10. We’re going to have to win 4-2, 5-3.”
Greenfield-Central is next in action Saturday against Southport, a doubleheader slated to start at 11 a.m. at home.
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Greenfield-Central 4, Richmond 0
R (0-3);000;000;0;—;0;9;1
GC (1-0);300;010;X;—;4;8;1
WP: Lexi Rankin. LP: Laurelai Depew.
2B: Lexi Rankin (G-C). RBI: Emily Francis 2, Lexi Rankin, Zoe Kesler (G-C).
Notable: Lexi Rankin 7 IP, 11 K, 2 BB, 9 H, 0 ER.
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