By Brian Heinemann | Daily Reporter
GREENFIELD — The waiting game is finally over for Greenfield-Central.
After a string of weather postponements, the Cougars softball team got a full game in Monday night against Noblesville.
It wasn’t quite the start the Cougars were looking for. The Millers smacked home runs in the first and second innings, to jump ahead early on, while the Cougars offense struggled to get going in cold conditions, warming up too late en route to a 10-5 season-opening defeat.
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Click here to purchase photos from this gallery“We’ve had, I think, nine games rained out or rescheduled,” Greenfield-Central coach Jason Stewart said. “We’re the only team in our conference who hadn’t played yet. To be honest, it was another miserable night to play — there was snow on the field at 1 o’clock — and it’s definitely not the easiest matchup, the team we had today. They’re going to be right there with everybody in 4A. They’re legit.”
Greenfield-Central had a tough time solving Noblesville’s freshman pitcher Madison Taylor. Taylor struck out six of the first 10 batters she faced, allowing only a bunt single through three innings.
By that point, her offense had given her a 5-0 cushion to work with. The Millers opened the game with two singles followed by a home run and added another round-tripper in the second.
“It’s a 40-degree day against a kid that’s legit,” Stewart said of Taylor. “That kid is very, very good. She’s got a very promising future. You know, we had some good swings. We had four or five hard hit balls that were just dead at them.
“It’s really good for your team to see a pitcher like that. We’re not going to see a whole lot better than that very many times. To get out there and see the at-bats that we had, I don’t have a lot to complain about.”
The Cougars’ offense finally broke through in the fourth inning, with three singles and a walk leading to two runs. Sam Kihega, Maria Kihega and Emily Francis singled in the inning.
The Cougars’ only other hits on the day came from Lexi Rankin’s third-inning bunt and a seventh-inning single from Maria Kihega, who finished 2-for-4 with an RBI.
Noblesville was led on offense by their pitcher, Taylor, who along with her seven strikeouts from the mound went 3-for-3 with a home run, two singles and three RBI. Millers shortstop Grace Smith added four RBI herself, blasting a home run to center in the first inning and laying down a squeeze bunt in the sixth.
The Cougars got the score to 6-2 before Noblesville pulled away in the sixth, scoring with a squeeze play, a wild pitch and another successful squeeze in quick succession.
Down 10-2 heading into the bottom of the seventh, Greenfield-Central kept fighting, drawing walks from their first three batters and pushing through three runs in the inning against two Millers relief pitchers.
“You get down, you don’t want to quit, obviously,” Stewart said. “We wanted to get the girls as many swings as we could tonight. We got a few (runs) in the last inning, and hopefully we can build off that for tomorrow night and the rest of the week. We’ve got a long week — six games we have a chance to win this week.”
The Cougars (0-1) take the field in search of their first win today at home against Centerville.