“It was a situation where we did make some adjustments where we need to,” Baker coach John Carlisle said. “We had a double, a scratch hit and we tried to claw our way back into the ball game late. But we came up short.”
Baker starting pitcher Alaynah Smith battled most of the evening as she tried to give the Walton batters off balance and off base. More often that not she was successful in the effort. When she wasn’t, the Walton batters made her pay.
The Braves scored two runs in the first and added four more runs in the fourth to put the game out of reach. A two-run homer by Bailey Crowther was the big shot of the inning for the Braves. Jami Murray hit a solo home run in the bottom of the sixth inning to close out the Walton scoring.
Baker had a batter reach base every inning with the exception of the fourth.
Carlie Hopps had a one-out walk in the first for Baker. Jena Fedorak walked in the second inning. Riley Frazier walked in the third.
The Lady Gators finally got on the scoreboard in the fifth inning.
Blakely York had the first Baker hit of the night to lead off the inning. Leighton Mitchell was next and walked. Karley Bishop was safe on an infield hit to load the bases.
There was one out when Baker scored its first two runs on an unusual play. The bases were loaded when Hopps lifted what looked to be an easy fly ball to the infield. The umpires correctly called the infield fly rule which states, ‘When runners are on first and second or the bases are loaded with less than two out, the batter is automatically out and the base runners advance at their own risk.’
The purpose of the rule is to discourage an infielder from intentionally dropping a pop fly to set up an easy double play.
As it turned out, the Walton first baseball did drop the ball and York and Mitchell scored on the play for Baker. Jolee Sloan scored for Baker in the sixth as she reached on a single and later touched home on a wild
