Abington Softball a Not-So-Perfect Oh-and-10

BRISTOL TOWNSHIP—Emotions ran the gamut Wednesday afternoon, from giddy jubilation, to stress, to ultimate disappointment.

In the end, the Abington Galloping Ghosts were forced to digest a 9-8 road loss to Harry Truman in nine innings, and wait and hope for their elusive first win of the season.

"We're almost there," senior pitcher Kelly Lyons said. "As a team, I thought we played really well, but couldn't come out with the win. It was another one of those games."

It actually wasn't one of those games.

Despite falling to 0-10, this defeat was different than many of the blowout losses that preceded it. The Ghosts began the second half of the season wanting to erase ugly memories: Four teams beat them by a combined score of 52-6, and they've been held to one or no runs seven times.

The first signs of excitement came when sophomore shortstop Rachel Holden slammed a two-run, first-inning homer to left. The bench became ebullient when scoring four more runs in the third inning, two on a single by senior co-captain Hannah Bratzler.

Through four innings, pitcher Kelly Lyons—the other co-captain—allowed one base runner, a leadoff single in the first inning.

The Tigers, a team with playoff aspirations, roared back in the fifth. A hit batter and two singles loaded the bases with no outs. Poor defensive decisions and an ill-timed throwing error turned a 6-0 game into 6-5.

After neither team scored in the sixth, Truman loaded the bases with no outs in the seventh on two singles and an error.

The Ghosts got the first out on a force at the plate. Cleanup hitter Nichole King popped to second for the second out, but with Rachel Cataldi backing up to catch the fly, Bridget Hunt tagged up from third and scored ahead of the throw.

"I couldn't believe it. We had it," said Lyons, who sent the game to extras by retiring the next batter. "We need to do a lot of little things better. We'll come out tomorrow in practice and work on those things."

Undaunted, Abington scored twice in the top of the eighth, as a result of putting the ball in play. Angie LaMaina walked, then scored all the way from first on a throwing error by the catcher Hunt, on Bratzler's sacrifice bunt.

Bratzler then eventually scored on a grounder to short.

"Something as simple as a sacrifice bunt made that happen," head coach Ellie White said. "That's what we always preach to the kids, the basics. You never know what can happen."

Truman again loaded the bases with no outs in the bottom on the eighth, and eventually tied the game. They finally won an inning later on a two-out single by Felicia McCreery.

While character-building losses may not really exist, White will take this one.

"We didn't finish," White said. "We know how to play the game. We just don't know how to win yet. That's going to come at some point. We had good things happen today. We've been getting blown out, and we finally had a good game where we competed. I'll take that."