Lady Cats lose season opener to Piper

By Andy Brown
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Updated: March 25, 2019

It was a different start to the season for the Louisburg softball team.

Louisburg was scheduled to begin its season with a doubleheader at Piper last Tuesday – and they did. Well, half of it anyway.

The Lady Cats lost the opener 12-5, but jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead in the nightcap on a home run from Karson Griggs. Mother Nature had other ideas as inclement weather postponed the second game until Thursday.

Not only did the Lady Cats lose the first game, but lost the lead in the nightcap as well. The game was forced to start over and Louisburg was on the wrong end of a 16-0 loss Thursday at Piper.

“Our conviction in game two was evident when we came out and scored three runs in the top half of the first,” Louisburg coach John Ozier said. “During the bottom half of the first, the heavy rains put an end to our momentum and forced postponement until Thursday night. Unfortunately we were forced to begin the game over rather than resuming from all we had left off on Tuesday night.

“It was an unfortunate ruling, but we attempted to regain our momentum, and move on. We could just not regain our energy from Tuesday and ended up on the losing end of a very lopsided game.”

In the opener, Louisburg jumped out to an early 3-1 lead in the second inning after Griggs walked with the bases loaded and seniors Madison Svoboda and Molly Rison each came through with RBI singles.

However, Piper scored 11 runs in the next three frames to give the Pirates a 12-3 lead and the Lady Cats, despite scoring two runs in the fifth, couldn’t catch up.

Griggs led the Lady Cats with three RBIs, while Griggs, Rison, Svoboda and Alyse Moore each recorded hits. Griggs had the lone extra base hit with a double. Junior Reilly Ratliff-Becher and freshman Jordan Mynsted each walked twice and Mynsted scored two of the Lady Cats’ runs.

“After having only one practice outside this preseason, I thought we came out very solid in the first game,” Ozier said. “We experienced a few defensive hiccups and Piper began to hit the ball hard and had a big inning that really hurt us. After we regained our composure, we put a couple more runs on the board. We stranded nine runners, so we really missed some great opportunities to score in the first game.”

It got a lot tougher for the Lady Cats on Thursday in the second game. Piper scored 10 runs in the first inning to take an early lead and never looked back.

Sophomore Brooklyn Diederich had two hits to lead Louisburg, while Rison, Svoboda, Griggs and Kayla Willey each had a single for Louisburg.