FORTVILLE — Mt. Vernon wasn’t able to get the comeback it needed in Thursday’s softball battle between two of the top teams in Class 4A.
It didn’t happen on Thursday, but with the regular season winding down and Class 4A Sectional 9 (hosted by Mt. Vernon) less than three weeks away, the Marauders will keep focusing on that big-picture comeback.
The Marauders, ranked No. 16 in the Indiana Coaches of Girls Sports Association poll, lost to No. 15 Pendleton Heights, 13-3, at Mt. Vernon High School.
Along with being two of the top teams in the state, they are Hoosier Heritage Conference and neighboring rivals.
On Thursday’s cold, rainy evening, the neighbors from Madison County took advantage of what they do best, as well as some Marauders mistakes, to pull away with a convincing victory.
Mt. Vernon dropped to 12-4 overall and finished its HHC season 4-3. Pendleton Heights improved to 15-5 and 2-1 in the conference.
“That was not our best,” Mt. Vernon coach Veronica Kirby said of her team’s performance. “It was cold, rainy, but it was like that for them, too. We just gave it to them. We didn’t do our best. That’s what’s most frustrating. I know we’re better than that. I know this team has that fight and that drive. Maybe this is our wake-up call.”
Conference, location and state-ranking are not the only similarities between the two programs. They are also two of the bigger power-hitting teams in the state.
Pendleton Heights ranks second. Mt. Vernon is tied for fifth.
The Arabians added three more to their total, upping their school-record total to 49. Mt. Vernon had two and now have 32 on the season. Shelbyville, another HHC team, leads the state with 55. Mt. Vernon lost 1-0 to Shelbyville on Tuesday.
“We knew (Pendleton Heights) was going to hit. They have a very strong lineup. We just knew we had to score more and unfortunately, tonight, we didn’t,” Kirby added.
With three first-inning singles, Pendleton Heights got out to a 1-0 lead. Leadoff hitter Kylie Davis singled and was forced out at second base on a ground ball off the bat of Hailee Brunnemer. Kieli Ryan followed with a single. With two outs, Caroline DeRolf singled to center field to score Brunnemer.
Mt. Vernon’s first hit of the game tied it at 1-1. To lead off the second inning, Haley Kissee hit her fifth home run of the season over the left field fence. Two batters later, Molly Buck gave Mt. Vernon a 2-1 lead with a home run to center field. It was her fifth of the year, too.
The Marauders were hitting solo shots, while Pendleton Heights first long ball of the game was a grand slam.
Grace Scott’s bases-loaded clout gave Pendleton Heights a 5-2 lead in the third.
It was still 5-2 in the fifth when Mt. Vernon made a couple of costly errors in the outfield. It led to two unearned runs.
Then, in the sixth inning, Pendleton Heights extended the lead on back-to-back home runs from Scott and Gracie Conkling. Scott has eight home runs on the season. Conkling picked up her fourth. The Arabians scored four more times in the seventh inning.
“Tonight was not one of our better nights,” Kirby continued. “We talk all the time, we’re going to have failure. We’re going to fail, but it’s how you recover from that failure and how you bounce back from that. We have to figure that out. That’s where we’re at right now. We’re failing but not bouncing back. We’re not figuring the other part of it out.
“We’ve got to fight our way out of it and we will because these girls are strong. These girls will work hard and we will get through it.”
The two state-ranked teams could have a rematch soon.
Both teams are in the Mt. Vernon Sectional, which begins Monday, May 24. The teams are on opposite sides of the bracket and could play in the championship game, though other tournament teams, including Greenfield-Central — the only other team in the sectional with a winning record — will try to keep that from happening.
In 2019, Mt. Vernon beat Pendleton Heights, 2-1, in nine innings in the sectional title game. The Marauders had lost handily to the Arabians earlier that year in a regular-season game.
“We got the opportunity to see them. They got the opportunity to see us,” Kirby said. “It only makes the next one that much more fun. Hopefully, we’ll get to that one.”
