Jade Hampton
One simple word summed up the Columbus East softbal loss on Wednesday — errors.
The Olympians committed five errors, and visiting Class 4A No. 6 Floyd Central took advantage of the miscues, thus handing East a 12-2 loss in six innings in a Hoosier Hills Conference contest.
“You can’t give them extra outs. When they’re hitting fly balls, you’ve got to catch them. When they’re hitting ground balls, you‘ve got to throw somebody out. We just didn’t do that,” East coach Rusty Brummett said. “In the innings we did do that, we limited them to one run. In contrast, the times they would miss a pop up, the times that they kicked a couple balls when you know they should have had, we didn’t really punish them for that. You have to take advantage of that.”
The Highlanders (15-3, 3-0) got the big inning in the top of the second when Aubrey Duckworth hit a leadoff triple and scored on a sacrifice fly in the next at-bat. Kaeden Stewart then hit a single. An error by the Olympians (6-5, 0-1) put runners on first and second. That error was costly, as Peyton Drummond smacked a three-run homer to center field to build the Floyd Central lead to 5-0 after it already had plated a run in the first inning.
The Highlanders added another run on a sacrifice fly in the third to increase the lead to 6-0. East got on the board in the bottom of the third when Lola Watkins scored on a catching error to make it 6-1.
Floyd Central increased the lead by scoring two runs in the fourth and three in the fifth to make it 11-1. A couple walks and an error loaded the bases for the Olympians. Hermoine Robinson walked to extend the game another inning at 11-2. The Highlanders then plated a run in the top of the sixth and shut down East in the bottom of the sixth to end it.
Jade Hampton was 1 for 3 with a double, and Watkins and starting pitcher Raegyn Foster went 1 for 3 for the Olympians. Foster ended up with the loss, going four innings, allowing eight runs, eight hits and two strikeouts. Baleigh Fish come on in relief for the final two innings.
The busy schedule this week for East continues when it hosts Seymour on Thursday, Shelbyville on Friday and a doubleheader with Franklin on Saturday.
“We’re still in the middle of a good season. We’re still in the spot where we’ve got a good record,” Brummett said. “That’s our first conference game. We come back out (Thursday), we‘ve got Seymour at home. If we come out and win that ballgame, we’re 1-1 in the conference and right where we want to be. We’re still in good shape.”
