By DANE FUELLING
WZBD.com
MONROE – Riding the hot bats and a pair of consecutive victories, the Bellmont Braves were licking their chops to take on the Adams Central Jets Monday night, but instead of a heavy dose of Maddie Hill, they got more Addie Baker than they could handle and the Jets’ backup hurler threw her team to victory, 6-1 at home.Â
Baker went the distance as Maddie Hill, who had really struggled so far this season, did not throw a pitch, playing first base instead. After allowing an opening double to Emily Bleke and an RBI single to Sami Christen, Baker allowed just two more hits the rest of the night, shutting out the Braves the rest of the way while striking out four and walking just three.
The Jets took advantage of three different errors by the Braves, negating the early Bellmont lead and jumping ahead 2-1.
Athena Schwartz led off the second inning rally with a base hit to left, but Bellmont pitcher Piper Baker got the next two Jets out and nearly got out of the inning as the Braves’ infield got the lead runner out on a ground ball to shortstop Aaliyah Faurote.Â
After Brianna Cook singled to put two on with two out, the Braves committed a pair of errors to allow both runners to score. Piper Baker ended the threat with a strikeout but never received more runs in support.Â
Emily Bleke tried to start another rally in the third but Cook made the pitches where she needed to and her defense made the plays behind her to keep the Braves off the scoreboard.
Brianna Cook led off the bottom of the fourth with a double and then took third on a wild pitch before scoring on a ground out by Sydney Jauregui to make the score 3-1 and put further distance between the home team and the Braves.Â
Baker did not return to the circle for the fifth inning and was replaced by Mary Kate Scheumann and the Jets pounced on the freshman pitcher. Hill’s hard-hit ground ball to third resulted in another Bellmont error and she came around to score on what was the sixth Braves’ error. Brooke Thomas broke the game wide open with a double to right past Ella Franze and what started as a close game was quickly a game out of reach.
A couple of walks issued by Addie Baker in the top of the seventh gave AC a few nervous moments, but she quickly recovered and kept Bleke from her third hit of the night with a flyout to center.
For the Braves, the only hits came from the top two spots in the order with Bleke and Christen each collecting two base hits.Â
Adams Central had the same total of hits, but the seven errors by Bellmont were simply too much for coach Mindy Buuck’s team. Only one of the Jets’ runs went in the book as earned.