Marble Falls Lady Stangs suffer through explosive inning
MARBLE FALLS — The Marble Falls High School softball team started the game against Cedar Park Vista Ridge Tuesday the right way.
Sophomore pitcher Alicia Macias forced two foul balls that were caught for outs by sophomore third baseman Hailey Wooten and senior catcher Mackinzee Mayfield, respectively. Senior center fielder Payton Peril caught the fly ball to end the inning.
But the Lady Mustangs (12-7, 0-2) couldn’t get a hit off Vista Ridge pitcher Jordan Schmidt.
Meanwhile, the Lady Rangers got the bats going, scoring five runs in the second before Marble Falls recorded the first out en route to the 11-0 win.
The Lady Mustangs ended the game with four hits compared to Vista Ridge’s 12.
And while head coach Tino Salazar was looking for better hitting, it’s the four errors in the second inning that began with a bobble of a grounder hit to second base that concerned him.
“I think definitely overall we made too many errors,” he said. “It was a domino effect.”
In a timeout during the second inning, Salazar said he gave his players one directive.
“Someone has to step up and make a play,” he said. “We can’t let the domino effect happen. We can’t go through the entire game and be timid.”
The coach said Schmidt played well, noting she forced 14 popups and his batters didn’t adjust to her rise ball.
“We’re not disciplined at the plate,” he said. “We had two hits the last inning.”
Had Marble Falls faced a two- or three-run deficit, Salazar said the Lady Mustangs still had options on how to manufacture runs by using the bunt and sacrifices.
“Down by nine runs, it changes the perspective of the game,” he said.
Marble Falls will host Leander Vandegrift 7 p.m. March 11 at Scearce Softball Field, 2101 Mustang Field.
“We put ourselves in a hole going 0-2 in district,” Salazar said. “We’re going to have to find our way out of it. We’re going to find out what kind of team we have real quick.”