By Thomas Sellers Jr.
Throughout March, area softball coaches want to see signs of improvement. On March 18 the Arlington Lady Tigers made the trip to Flag City to take on the Millington Lady Trojans in Miles Park. Head Coach Whitney Horton’s Lady Trojans went six innings with several hits against the 3A power Arlington. But the Lady Tigers showed good performances from a trio of young pitchers Gracie Brown, Elizabeth Harris and Yvette Ledesma to overwhelm Millington 14-3. “We hit and that’s what we needed to do,” Arlington Head Coach Brandon Morgan. “I think the advantage right now is that because we didn’t play great defense tonight. We pitched three young pitchers tonight. “They’re all freshmen or sophomores,” he continued. “They did a good job and made Millington hit the ball — in which they did. I felt like we were able to get a few more hits than they did. They made a few more mistakes and it allowed us to get some runs and get ahead.” The Lady Tigers led 2-0 after one inning with RBI singles from Autumn Belviy and Ashtyn Manley. Millington cut the deficit in half in the bottom half of the frame when Ally Morona stroked a base hit to drive in Ann Howard. Then Arlington’s 2-1 advantage grew to 6-1 in the second inning. Brown helped her own cause leading off with a single. Then the big blow came courtesy of Kendall Graham’s double to score a pair of runners. After Hannah Moore made the tally 5-1 with a base hit, Belviy drove in the final run of the frame with a sacrifice fly. Brown made the score 7-1 in the third inning with a base hit in the third inning. In the bottom half of the frame the Lady Trojans scored a run with a double steal allowing Alexis Jordan to touch home plate. Millington scored one more run during the contest when Morona crushed a double in the fifth inning to drive in Hannah Clifton. But Arlington put seven more runs on the scoreboard to win the contest 14-3 in six innings. “Overall it wasn’t our best performance but I am pretty satisfied this early in the season with some of our young girls,” Morgan said. Morgan was glad to see his pitchers Brown, Harris and Ledesma have productive innings against a quality lineup. Meanwhile the Lady Trojans received good moments from sophomore hurler Kaitlynn McDonald. Morgan said he was glad to learn more about his team heading up the road.
“I learned that we’ve got multiple pitchers who can throw strikes,” he concluded. “Defense when we’re on, we are tough to beat. We’ve just got to be able to hit and hit the ball consistently. Then I think we’ll be OK.”
