Lady Rams blast off: West, Collins's home run highlight Raceland district victory
May 6—RACELAND — Greenup County had scored 10 runs or more in each of its last six games coming into Wednesday, so Raegan West had work to do after the Raceland hurler allowed three runs to the Lady Musketeers in the first two and two-thirds innings she pitched.
Specifically, conferring with Lady Rams assistant coach Mike Diller.
"He said, 'Just settle down and throw it over the plate. First-pitch strike,'" West said. "I think I was doing too much, and so I'm just trying to throw strikes. I was trying to throw a bunch of spinning pitches that really weren't doing what they were supposed to do, so I just settled down and started throwing it over the plate a little bit."
The result: West retired 13 straight Greenup County batters. In the meantime, the Lady Rams got their offense going, to the point that a two-run Lady Musketeers homer in the seventh inning didn't hurt badly in a 7-5 Raceland victory.
"We know that Greenup isn't going away," Lady Rams coach Robbie West said. "Greenup has a good ball team, and we knew that it was gonna be a tough game, so we expected that."
The Lady Musketeers indeed broke on top 3-0 on a trio of sacrifice flies — one each by Sarah Hall, Skyler Lawrence and Emma Boggs — in the first three innings.
Meanwhile, Greenup County sophomore Kaylie Lawrence kept at bay Raceland's offense, the second-most-prolific in the 16th Region, through the first two frames.
"That's the first time that we've seen Lawrence pitch," Robbie West said. "So they did a really nice job of mixing pitches up and working the ball inside and outside and keeping us off-balance."
Raceland (16-6, 2-1 63rd District seeding) reeled off the next seven runs to take control. Chloe Collins supplied an RBI groundout and Hannah Wilson scored from third on a Lady Rams bunt in front of the plate.
Raegan West scored from third on a passed ball in the fifth to tie the game and Reagan Mackie provided the go-ahead RBI single to left.
And finally, Raceland played tack-on in the sixth on Collins's monstrous two-run shot to left field — her 12th home run of the season — and Raegan West's run-scoring double.
"I think it just landed about 30 seconds ago," Greenup County coach Jeani Gollihue cracked of Collins's dinger in a postgame interview. "We thought we pitched her pretty well — we got her out the first three times — but we must have just gotten a little bit too much of the plate on that."
That gave Raceland the wiggle room to be able to afford Kaylie Lawrence's two-run shot with Greenup County down to its final out in the top of the seventh. Raegan West righted herself to retire the next hitter on a flyout to Wilson in right field to end the game.
Raegan West was 2 for 4 and Makena Francis went 2 for 2 for the Lady Rams. Collins drove in three runs.
West scattered five hits in the circle. She did not record a strikeout.
Kaylie Lawrence fanned four Lady Rams. She benefited from a handful of strong catches in the outfield, including Greenup County left fielder Zoey Keeton's diving snag in the sixth to take extra bases away from the speedy Wilson.
"I feel like they see that they have the potential to compete," Gollihue said of the Lady Musketeers (9-3, 1-2 district seeding). "A lot of our problem is not talent, it's believing in ourselves. So, although I don't like to lose, I think that we were in the game enough that we know that we can be in the game. I think we can be in the game with anybody.
"I feel like other teams respect us, and that in itself is a big deal, I think."
The Lady Rams and Lady Musketeers reconvene in Lloyd on May 20.
(606) 326-2658 — zklemme@dailyindependent.com
GREENUP CO. 012 000 2 — 5 5 2
RACELAND 002 023 X — 7 10 1
K. Lawrence and S. Lawrence; R. West and S. West. W — R. West. L — K. Lawrence. 2B — Hunt (GC), R. West (R). HR — K. Lawrence (GC), Collins (R).
