PENDLETON — It wasn’t perfect.
She did that earlier in the week, but it wasn’t far from it.
Considering the opponent and magnitude of the game, New Palestine senior pitcher Sam Booe’s performance in the circle at Legends Field Thursday against a powerful hitting state-ranked Pendleton Heights team was every bit as impressive.
Booe took a no-hitter into the sixth inning, had 14 strikeouts and finished with a two-hit shutout in the Class 4A No. 1 ranked Dragons 6-0 win over the No. 14 4A Arabians.
It extended the Dragons win streak to 33, 24 this season and nine at the end of their 2019 Class 3A state championship winning year.
Their last loss was a 5-2 defeat at the hands of Crown Point on May 11, 2019.
It also put the Dragons one step closer to winning the Hoosier Heritage Conference. Along with being 24-0 overall, they are 5-0 in conference play.
Pendleton Heights, ranked second in the state with 51 home runs, came in winners of eight straight. The loss drops its record to 16-6 and 3-2 in the HHC.
Booe pitched a perfect game Tuesday in a 12-0 senior night win over 3A Connersville. She threw four innings, giving up just three hits, in an 8-2 win over Fishers on Wednesday.
“Phenomenal,” New Palestine head coach Ed Marcum said in describing his No. 1 pitcher’s outing against the Arabians. “She was great on Tuesday, got the win Wednesday and she came out today, and as I have been saying, the bigger game the better she pitches.
“She was just absolutely phenomenal. She was hitting her spots. All of her pitches were working. She just did a great job and defensively we played well behind her.”
Every Pendleton Heights’ baserunner came after two outs. In the first inning, Booe walked Bo Shelton, but it followed with a strikeout.
Starting with the inning-ending strikeout, Booe retired 15 in a row before Pendleton Heights Kylie Davis hit a two-out double off the right field fence. The Dragons ace then retired the next hitter on a fly out to center field.
In the seventh, after two strikeouts, Gracie Conkling singled, prior to a liner right at third baseman Lexi Campbell to end the game.
“I was kinda doing my thing and trying to throw it where my pitching coach called it,” Booe said, downplaying her dominance. “I was just trying to hit my spots and I was hitting my spots really well tonight.
“I do think I’ve been pitching well, but I don’t think I’m pitching my best right now,” she added. “If I was pitching my best I would be pitching a little bit faster and I’d be better hitting my spots all the time.”
Any thought that a second time through the order would be beneficial to the hard-hitting hosts never materialized.
Booe had a stretch of seven straight strikeouts in the Arabians second go-around of seeing the New Pal senior.
“That’s kind of the way she’s been doing it,” Marcum added. “She’s been getting us a lot of strikeouts. Whatever the type of hitter she’s facing, she seems to rise to the challenge. She did a great job battling through all of them.”
Pendleton Heights put only eight balls into fair territory. Five of their seven non-strikeout outs were made in the infield.
“Disappointing,” Pendleton Heights coach Rob Davis said of his team’s performance. “(Booe) is good, but striking out 14 times, it just wasn’t our night.
“I didn’t think we competed very well at the plate,” he added. “I thought we were just in there swinging instead of trying to hit the ball. We’ll learn and get better from this. We’ll learn from it and go from there.”
New Palestine got all the runs it needed in a four-run second inning. Kinsey Mitchell had the big hit with a two-run double. She went 3 for 4 with two doubles. She was 4 for 5 on Wednesday at Fishers.
Kendal Calvert also had a second-inning double and later scored on a passed ball. Allie Blum had an RBI-single.
In the third inning, Aglaia Rudd led off with a bloop single. Campbell followed with her ninth home run of the season for a 6-0 lead.
“You’re never comfortable,” Marcum said on getting the big lead early. “We got that 6-0 lead. As a coach, you want to go ahead and put it away, because you know how good of a hitting team Pendleton is. I was a little disappointed we didn’t keep our foot on the accelerator there and keep scoring runs, but they did a nice job.
“I’m really proud to take home a big conference win against one of the top teams in the state.”
Along with being a big league game, it was Marcum’s 500th as head coach of the Dragons.
“It’s big,” Booe added on the win. “We’ve never had this many victories in a row to start the season and it was huge to win on coach’s 500th game.”
