Wapakoneta’s Ellie Prenger slides safely into home plate before the tag attempt of St. Mary’s Ayden Young during Tuesday’s game at K.C. Geiger Park.
Richard Parrish | The Lima News
ST. MARYS — Wapakoneta hasn’t been in many close situations so far this season, but the moment presented itself on Tuesday night and the Redskins were ready.
Despite a few tense scenarios in the later innings, Wapakoneta (8-3, 2-0 WBL) hung on to beat WBL rival St. Marys 7-3 at K.C. Geiger Park, handing the Roughriders (5-4, 3-1 WBL) its first league loss and moving into a three-way tie at the top of the standings with Elida (8-1, 2-0 WBL) and Kenton (4-4, 2-0 WBL).
It was the type of game that Wapakoneta coach Bill Sammons said his team prepared for with strong scrimmage opponents and competitive non-conference play.
“We scrimmaged teams like Anthony Wayne, Indian Lake and we play really good non-league teams to prepare for games like this,” he said. “These girls treat those games exactly like this one. We came out and played a great team today in St. Marys and to them, it was just like any other game.”
Tuesday night’s matchup featured two of the WBL’s top arms in Wapakoneta’s Addison Fisher and St. Marys’ Adyson Van De Keere.
Van De Keere held the Redskins to just two earned runs on the night, while Fisher yielded three, but St. Marys committed three errors on defense, allowing five unearned runs to score which turned out to be the difference in the game.
“She’s a great ball player,” Sammons said of Van De Keere. “We just wanted to put the ball in between the white lines with her. She strikes out a lot of hitters, so we knew if we could the ball in play somehow, we could put the pressure on them.”
Fisher, who got the win after striking out seven hitters in a complete game effort, saw the ball well at the plate against Van De Keere, going 3 for 3 with two RBI and three runs scored against the Roughriders’ standout sophomore.
“She’s a great pitcher,” Fisher said of Van DeKeere. “I knew I needed to adjust to her speed and get on her early if I wanted to get hits.”
Fisher scored the first run of the game on an error in the top of the first inning.
In the bottom half of the first, Van De Keere sent a 1-0 pitch over the center field fence to tie the game 1-1.
Wapakoneta regained the lead in the top of the third when Fisher walked, then came around to score on a single from Emily Vanhorn.
The Redskins added three more runs in the fourth on run-scoring singles from Fisher and Vanhorn. They carried a 7-2 lead into the sixth inning, where defense and pitching closed out the win.
In both innings, Fisher stranded two runners to get out of trouble, including an inning-ending double play turned by Alisha Holtzapple at first base in the sixth inning.
“In those situations, I just tell myself to stay smooth, hit my spots and do the best I can,” Fisher said.
Fisher and Vanhorn combined to drive in six runs on five hits for Wapakoneta.
Ava Klosterman went 2 for 3 for St. Marys and Van De Keere recorded the team’s lone RBI.
The Roughriders are now off until Friday when they’ll take on Ottawa-Glandorf (1-7, 0-4 WBL).
Wapakoneta finishes the week with two more WBL games at Celina (2-8, 1-1 WBL) on Thursday and against Van Wert (0-2, 0-7 WBL) at home on Friday.
“We need to flush this one out as fast as we can after enjoying it tonight because we have two more big ones coming on Thursday and Friday,” Sammons said. “We just need to take a deep breath tomorrow with a day off and stay focused. Our goal is to take every game we play pitch-by-pitch, go 100% on every play and see what happens from there. ”
Box score (r-h-e)
Wapakoneta 1013020 7-9-1
St. Marys 1000110 3-6-3
Wapakoneta 7 (ab-r-h-rbi)
Addison Fisher 3-3-3-2, Aubryn Schnarre 1-0-1-0, Emily Vanhorn 3-0-2-4, Kambrie Meier 4-0-0-0, Shabryanna Worthington 3-0-1-0, Alisha Holtzapple 4-0-1-0, Ellie Prenger 3-1-1-0, Paison Preston 1-0-0-0, Kaelyn Long 3-0-0-0, Lydia Manger 1-0-0-0, Kylie Behr 3-2-0-0, Totals: 29-7-9-6.
St. Marys 3 (ab-r-h-rbi)
Kelly Holsinger 3-0-1-0, Cadence Hirschfeld 3-0-0-0, Adyson Van De Keere 3-1-1-1, Ryleigh Berg 1-0-0-0, Ava Klosterman 3-0-2-o, Alexis Shadrach 3-1-1-0, Kenzie Henning 2-0-0-0, Ashlyn Ross 3-1-1-0, Bailey Weigel 3-0-0-0, Ayden Young 3-0-0-0, Totals: 27-3-6-1.
Pitching (ip-h-r-er-bb-so)
Addison Fisher (W) 7.0-6-3-1-3-7
Adyson Van De Keere (L) 5.1-7-7-2-5-6
Reach Chris Howell at 567-242-0468 or on Twitter at @Lima_Howell
