HOPE — Trailing by three runs with one out in the top of the seventh, Edinburgh was two outs away from falling two games behind Hauser in the Mid-Hoosier Conference softball race.
Sidney Beier and the Lancers didn’t want to let it happen.
Beier’s two-run double sparked a five-run seventh that gave Class A No. 6 Edinburgh the lead, and the Lancers retired the Class A No. 9 Jets in the bottom of the inning to claim a 7-5 victory and salvage a split in the early-season two-game series.
The Lancers (2-1, 1-1) did not face Jets ace Tessa Sims, as they did in Thursday’s 5-1 Hauser win at Edinburgh. The Indiana State recruit had shoulder surgery last summer, and her father and coach, Craig Sims, is taking it easy with her early in the season.
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Instead, the Lancers saw Hunter Crain. Crain allowed only two runs and three hits through six innings before running into trouble in the seventh.
Crain walked Morgan Calhoun to lead off the seventh, and Kaitlyn Bailey reached on an infield single. The Jets (2-2, 1-1) got the lead runner at third when Maddi Clark grounded to short, but then Beier stepped to the plate and delivered a two-run double to left to cut the lead to 5-4.
“My mindset was just to get a solid base hit,” Beier said. “We didn’t really care who was pitching. We just wanted to come out here and hit the ball and play our game. Every time we playing them, it’s always a competitive game, and we like playing them.”
Beier went to third on a passed ball and scored the tying run on a sacrifice fly to right by Emma Wade. Then with two out and nobody on, Vanessa McManaway singled, and Grace Joiner smacked an RBI-double to the center-field fence.
After a walk to Paige Burton, Gracie Long delivered an RBI-single to make it 7-5.
“They finally started to make adjustments in the box, and they started to get smart,” Edinburgh coach Stephen Clark said. “They came out flat and gave (Hauser) a couple unearned runs, but I think the positive of the whole thing is the way they were able to turn it around at the end of the game.”
The Lancers got on the board in the first when Bailey walked, stole second and scored on a single by Beier.
Hauser took advantage of a pair of Edinburgh errors and an RBI-double by Crain to score three runs in the bottom of the first. The Jets made it 4-1 in the second when Katie Taylor singled, took second on a wild pitch and scored on a two-out single by Sims.
The Lancers manufactured a run in the third when Bailey reached on a one-out infield single, took second on a wild pitch and third on a passed ball and scored on a Beier groundout. The Jets got the run back in the fifth when Tessa Sims led off with a double, went to third on a groundout and scored on a squeeze bunt by Sydney Schoen to take a 5-2 lead.
Bailey finished 2 for 3, and Beier went 2 for 4 with four RBIs for Edinburgh. Maddi Clark allowed nine hits and struck out 10.
Tessa Sims finished 3 for 4. Taylor went 2 for 3, and Shelby Fugate went 2 for 4.
“I’m proud of the girls the way they’re hitting the ball,” Hauser coach Craig Sims said. “We’re putting up quality hits against quality pitching. It hurts to give the game away the way we did, but you have to give credit to them because they came up with the hits when it mattered. I thought we played well for six innings, but that doesn’t win a ballgame.”
