COLUMBUS – The North Platte Community College softball team put the tying run at third base Sunday but fell 4-3 to Central Community College as the season ends in the first round of the Region IX Division II tournament. Sunday was the third game of a best-of-three, first-round series. CCC won the first game Saturday 6-5 in eight innings. North Platte came back to win the second game Saturday 10-0 to set up Game 3 Sunday.
“We fought all the way to the end and never gave up,” said North Platte Coach Janelle Higgins. “We knew it was going to be a battle all the way to the end and it was.”
North Platte came out Sunday with a first-inning lead. After the game started on a Raider error, Emily Marsden (Papillion) singled and both runners moved up on a Willow Chitty (North Platte) sacrifice bunt and the Knights took a 1-0 lead on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Hallei Morales (North Platte).
Central tied the game in the bottom of the first and took a 2-1 lead with a run in the third, and added runs in the fifth and sixth innings to lead 4-1.
“We missed opportunities to score almost every inning and that was the difference in the game,” Higgins said.
In the North Platte seventh, Morales led off with a walk, but after a strikeout and a fielder’s choice the Knights got down to their last strike twice but didn’t fold. Megan Hernandez-Bellew (Broomfield, Colo.) singled to center. Maddie Liddell (Glenwood, Iowa) got down 0-2 but worked a walk to load the bases for Kayleigh Bucio (Rialto, Calif.) who singled on an 0-2 pitch to right field to drive home two runs and close the gap to 4-3, but the rally ended with runners on first and third.
Marsden pitched six innings and absorbed the loss, she allowed eight hits, and struck out four.
North Platte had seven hits in the game with two from Hernandez-Bellew and five singles.
With the win Central CC improves to 13-22 and advances to the Region IX Division II championship series at Beatrice against Southeast Community College – a best-of-three-game series.
North Platte finishes the season at 16-29.
“It’s always hard to lose but it’s harder when you know the season is over,” Higgins said. “This team left everything on the field today and I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
GAME 1 (Saturday) – Central CC, 6, North Platte CC 5 (8 innings): The two teams traded leads five times before the Raiders scored the game winner in the bottom of the eighth inning.
North Platte took a 2-1 lead in the third inning on Emily Marsden’s two-run double. Central scored two in the third and one in the fifth to take a 4-2 lead.
The Knights responded with a run in the sixth on a single by Alea Binkly (Council Bluffs, Iowa) and a double by Ashylnn Krueger (Littleton, Colo.). With one out in the seventh, Mikayla Gibson (West Valley, Utah) and Marsden singled, then two outs Hallei Morales doubled to center to put North Platte in the lead 5-4.
Central scored a run in the seventh to tie and one in the eighth for the win.
Krueger pitched the first 6.1 innings, allowed five runs and six hits, one walk and she struck out one.
GAME 2 (Saturday) – North Platte CC 10, Central CC 0: The Knights rebounded from the walk-off loss by exploding for four runs in the first inning, two in the second, and finished out the game with three in the fourth and one in the fifth to polish off the Raiders in five innings.
Willow Chitty powered a two-run homer in the first and went four-for-four at the plate to drive in half of North Platte’s 10 runs.
Emily Marsden was the winning pitcher going four hitless, scoreless innings, striking out six. Hailey Wilkins (Tyler, Texas) recorded the last three outs to earn the save.
Hallei Morales went three-for-four and Kayleigh Bucio went two-for-two as North Platte outhit Central CC 11-1.