Cathleen Allison/Nevada Appeal
Carson High returned to 4A softball action Tuesday. Unfortunately, the Senators' game wasn't up to 4A standards.
Faulty fielding put the Senators into an early 4-0 hole, and the Reed Raiders scored nine runs in their final two at-bats en route to a 13-0 non-league softball victory.
"We just got beat in every phase," Carson coach Scott Vickrey said. "We got beat in the circle, we got beat at the plate and we weren't clean enough in the field. It's not the momentum I'd hoped to have going into Thursday."
The Senators managed just two hits off hard-throwing Chelsea Cohen and made three errors. Carson also had two passed balls, a couple of wild pitches and two hit batters. That's too many mistakes against a good team like Reed.
Vickrey was referring to the Senators' critical three-game series against Wooster. Carson travels to Reno on Thursday and then hosts the Colts in a 10 a.m. double-header Saturday.
Natalie Morrow picked up the start, and for the first three innings, pitched better than the results indicated.
Morrow should have escaped the first inning unscathed, but a throwing error by Elayna Shine led to two unearned runs.
In the third, Reed scored two more times to take a 4-0 lead. Brooke Silva walked and stole second while Cohen struck out. After Kristy Pasley popped to short, Alexandra Corona doubled to deep center field, scoring Silva. Sydney Jones followed with a groundball to shortstop Krista Mattice, whose throw was wide, allowing Corona to score from second base.
"It was Natalie's first outing since Sacramento," Vickrey said. "We gave up some runs early. They are a good-hitting team."
The Senators played in a tournament in Sacramento on March 13-14.
Meanwhile, Cohen was cruising along. She retired eight of the first nine batters before allowing a ringing double to left-center field by Kristin Withrow. After that, Cohen retired seven of the last eight in the five-inning game. Daria Leid singled in the fourth for the Senators' second and last hit of the day.
"She didn't have her best stuff today," said Reed coach Ray Charles. "We're trying to get better (each game)."
Reed broke the game wide open in the fifth when it scored five runs, two of which were charged to Morrow and three were charged to Leid.
Tia Wunder walked and advanced to second on Erica McKenzie's fielder's choice. Leid, who threw a no-hitter on Monday against Dayton, came in to relieve. Silva slammed a 2-1 offering over the fence in left-centerfield to make it 7-0. Cohen followed with a first-pitch homer that just got inside the foul pole in left to make it 8-0. Pasley followed with a towering homer to left for a 9-0 lead, and Leid was done for the day.
Morrow came back and got the final two outs, but she allowed four runs on four hits in the top of the fifth, as the Raiders extended their lead to 13-0.
Vickrey said he made the change to Leid, because he thought the difference in deliveries might throw Reed off balance. Instead, Leid was what the doctor ordered.