(Cannon Casey/CHSAANow.com)
ERIE — Kara Kovets came to bat with the bases loaded and a chance to break a top-10 softball matchup open in the first inning, but grounded into a fielder’s choice.
In her second at-bat of No. 5 Erie’s 11-5 win over No. 9 Frederick, she didn’t miss.
“I knew what I had to do,” Kovets said. “I just had to trust my hands and wait until a ball got into my zone to hit it as hard as I can.”
Kovets hit a two-run homerun to dead center to give Erie a 7-2 lead over Frederick.
“Kara has a lot of power,” Erie coach Harold Simmons said. “She hit a lot of homeruns last year, so she’s a big time player. That’s kind of her thing, you know, she gets a good launch angle and hits the ball out of the park.
“Anytime you tack on those runs in an inning like that, I think there were two outs at that time, you need those two runs.”
Maddie Leach pitched a complete game for Erie in the win. It was Leach’s first game as the No. 1 starter for the Tigers as she replaced the standout Rio Sanchez.
“It’s tough, right,” Simmons said. “It’s nerve-racking replacing somebody like that. You just have to be yourself and compete, and I thought she did.
“It was a good opening outing for our new pitcher replacing a girl that’s been a legend in Colorado softball.”
Erie continually hit the ball hard, chasing Frederick’s starting pitcher Makenna Goodard from the game in the third inning.
“I feel like this team is really strong,” Kovets said. “Our hitting has gotten a lot better and our fielding, we all have eachother’s backs.”
(Cannon Casey/CHSAANow.com)
It was Erie’s Kat Sackett that started the scoring. A line drive just under the glove of a diving Aspen Dufour drove in one, before Leach knocked one into the gap with runners on first and second.
After two throwing errors, Leach stood on third with the score 3-0 Erie.
Frederick battled back in the bottom of the inning, as Lorenna Hernandez singled down the third base line to close it to a one-run game.
In the second, an error and a fielder’s choice put the score at 5-2 with Kovets up to bat and a runner on.
Sackett and Erie added three more runs of insurance in the top of the seventh before Leach closed out the 11-5 win.
“Anytime you get a win against a top notch program and a rival game, it feels good,” Simmons said. “We had some good timely hitting, got a little bit soft there in the middle of the game bat-wise where we didn’t stay on them.”