The Lady Eagles headed over to Clarion last Thursday the 6th to face off against the Cowgirls in the Regional Quarterfinal. "We knew we had to play well to beat them as they had beaten us the last two times we played them," said Coach Jim McLaughlin. And so the Eagles hit the diamond ready to play hard, and immediately seized the lead.
Addy Jeske got the game going for the Eagles literally right off the bat, as she hit only the second pitch of the game into the sweet spot in the left center field, where it rolled to the fence, giving Jeske an inside the park home run. "That early run was key for us," said McLaughlin, noting that pressure builds on a team that falls behind early in the postseason.
In the second inning, the Eagles dominated the Cowgirls again with three more runs. Back to back singles by Maddison Kaiser and Olivia Conaway got things rolling. Then Lily Locke reached on a fielder's choice, while Kaiser beat the throw, loading the bases. Chloe Steil then powered out a two run single which Jeske followed up with a sac fly that pushed in the third and final run of the second.
The two teams stalemated in the third and fourth, but in the fifth both teams rallied – but the Eagles rallied harder, boiling over with five runs to CGD's two. It started with a walk by Steil, which was followed up by a single from Jeske. Braxton Steil and Tarissa Middleton both knocked out RBI singles. Then, the Kaiser sisters Nadia and Maddison both singled in runs. And then to put the cherry on the sundae Conaway hammered out a groundout to drive in the Eagles fifth run of the fifth inning.
"Those five runs were huge," said Coach McLaughlin, noting that the Cowgirls hadn't tossed in the towel, and "finally got on the scoreboard with two runs, making the score 9-2. Without those five runs the score would only have been 4-2 with two innings left to play. Those extra
runs helped us to play relaxed late in the game."
After a stalemated sixth the Eagles racked up another two runs in the seventh, after a run of three singles in a row by Figueroa, Maddison Kaiser, and Conaway. Locke also got an RBI groundout, and Jeske got her third hit of the game.
Brooklyn Osborne continued her streak of stellar performances, this time setting a career high for strikeouts, taking out 11 batters. "Our battery of Osborn and Chloe Steil had an outstanding game together," said McLaughlin, "and that set the tone for our defense." The Eagles also played a very balanced offense, with eight batters getting hits, and nine different players scoring runs.
