The Central Community College softball team took a pair of games from North Platte Tuesday by the scores of 18-3 and 18-14.
“We never gave up, we dug ourselves into big holes both games and had opportunities in almost every inning to help ourselves out and just fell short,” said North Platte Coach Janelle Higgins.
The Raiders opened up the day with an eight-run first inning and cruised to the win in the first game and had three big innings in the second game to account for 15 runs.
“We put a lot of pressure on ourselves today and played not to lose instead of playing our game,” Higgins said.
Willow Chitty (North Platte) had a home run and two of the RBIs in Game 1 and went three-for-five in Game 2 with three more RBIs. The Knights were held to four hits in the first game but banged out eight extra-base hits in Game 2.
“We have to continue to trust each other and execute our individual roles,” Higgins said.
Central Improves to 10-20 on the season and 5-5 in Nebraska Community College Athletic Conference play.
North Platte is 11-23 and after winning the first conference game of the year in Columbus fall to 1-7 in the NCCAC.
The Knights are right back at in at home Wednesday with Northeastern Junior College starting at 4 p.m.
“We have a lot of games left and can still have an opportunity to win a lot of games,” Higgins said.
You can follow homes games broadcast on 98.1 FM / 1410 AM or on the Internet at www.northplattepost.com.
Game 1 – Central CC 18, North Platte 3: The Raiders launched a couple first-inning home runs and never looked back scoring eight times in the first, four in the second, and six more in the fourth inning.
North Platte’s offense was limited to a Kayleigh Bucio (Rialto, Calif.) double in the second, a Willow Chitty homer run in the third inning accounting for two runs, a third-inning single from Megan Hernandez-Bellew (Broomfield, Colo.) and a Mikayla Gibson (West Valley, Utah) solo home run in the fourth inning.
Hailey Wilkins (Tyler, Texas) started the game but only lasted two-third of an inning. Emily Marsden (Papillion) went 4.1 innings.
Game 2 – Central CC 18, North Platte 14: The team from Columbus scored four times in the first inning, but North Platte responded with three runs in the bottom of the first and scored five times in the second to take an 8-4 lead.
“In Game 2, we adjusted to their pitching changes well but we got caught on our heels when we took a lead and then had to battle back again and we ran out of steam,” Higgins said.
The Knights scored in the first, keyed by a Hallei Morales (North Platte) double, a Willow Chitty single and a Megan Hernandez-Bellew double. In the second inning, Kayleigh Bucio (Rialto, Calif.) delivered an RBI single to tie the game. Emily Marsden doubled in two runs to give the Knights a 6-4 lead. Chitty and Alea Binkly (Council Bluffs, Iowa) doubled back-to-back to put North Platte up 8-4.
A pair of Central errors to start the third inning set the table for Morales to single in one run with another run scoring on a passed ball to put the Knights in front 10-4.
Central scored six runs in the fourth inning with four straight singles, a hit batter and another single to make it 10-8 then a North Platte error led to two more Central runs and a tie game. The Knights got two runs back in the bottom of the fourth on a Central error, a Bucio double and a Marsden to take back the lead 12-10.
The Raiders scored once in the fifth and five times in the sixth to lead. 16-12 lead and maintained the margin through the seventh for the win.
North Platte had 12 hits in the game with Chitty leading the way with three. Marsden, Morales and Bucio each had two hits.
Ashylnn Krueger (Littleton, Colo.) pitched the first four innings, Hailey Wilkins and Marsden both threw one inning.