Lady Cardinals overcome jitters, advance in 1A playoffs
Navajo Times | Quentin Jodie
St. Michael ace Denea Livingston winds up for a pitch against the Desert Heights Prep Coyotes on Friday evening at Window Rock High School in the first round of the AIA 1A playoffs. The Lady Cardinals advanced with a 10-4 win.
FORT DEFIANCE
The St. Michael softball team overcame a slew of errors in the third frame against the Desert Heights Prep Coyotes in the first round of the Arizona Interscholastic Association 1A playoffs on Friday evening.
The sixth-seeded Lady Cardinals conceded an early 3-0 lead to the Phoenix charter school at Window Rock High School before St. Michael strung together some hits in the fourth and sixth frames for a 10-4 win.
The visitors had a couple of hard-hitting balls toward the infield as the Coyotes took advantage and moved some runners to gain that early cushion.
“Those were errors and I think the nerves got to them,” St. Michael coach Julianne Billison said of team. “One of them was my freshman and she was a bit nervous. After we got that inning out of the way, the girls started to minimize their errors.”
And while things could have gone south for the Billison-coached team, St. Michael responded in a big way in the next frame with some timely hits from the bottom half of its lineup. In that inning, St. Michael scattered seven hits on Coyote left pitcher Nicole Bryan for six runs
“We just had to pick each other up,” St. Michael senior pitcher Denea Livingston said. “We know that everyone makes mistakes, but you got to push through that.
“As you know, softball is not about one person,” she added. “We had to stay together and work together … I think our hits gave us some confidence and that really picked up our team.”
Leadoff hitter Rhyley Myers started the rally with a single and she advanced to third on a single from Livingston.
Freshman shortstop Chanelle Hale followed that up with run-scoring double. Later in the inning, St. Michael had run-scoring singles from left fielder Keoni Becenti, flex Ausha Teller, catcher Hayden Roan and Myers.
“Our goal was getting hits because we’ve been struggling to get hits in our games,” Billison said. “We practiced all week with hits and once we got the momentum we kept hitting and hitting.”
In the fifth, the Coyotes cut the lead down to 6-4, but the Cardinals put the game out of reach in the sixth with four runs headed by the two-run homer from Roan
“We stayed aggressive with our hitting and base running,” Billison said. “We really improved on our base running today. I’ve been telling the girls that when you’re at second, look home and today we just capitalized on that aggressive base running.”
The Cardinals finished with 15 hits with Meyers and Hale leading the way with three hits each while Roan added two hits and 4 RBIs.
Livingston went the distance and gave up four runs (one earned) on seven hits while striking out 15 batters.
The Cardinals played No. 3 seed Williams on Wednesday, May 6 in the second round of the 1A playoffs with Williams winning 13-3. The loss ended St. Michael’s season at 16-8 overall.
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Highway 264,
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