Softball: CL Hawks Rally Past Johnson City, 7-3
Newcomer Addison Ray is addisoning more depth on Hawks Softball Team
Canyon Lake rallies by Johnson City Friday night at the Hawk diamond after constructing another multi-run inning, 7-3.
The Hawks will be entering District 26-4A with an impressive 7-1 record as they used a 6 run second inning showing Johnson City that a Hawk can beat an Eagle.
As this season has shown, Canyon Lake can have some sustaining innings as they turned the trick again, when they batted around to take a lead and relying on a good defensive game to get the win.
CL had gone over a week without any games as weather stopped a tournament last weekend and cancelled games this week, leaving the Hawks hungry for competition.
Canyon Lake has now put together six innings where they have scored 4 or more runs in an inning this season.
The Hawks were also 10-5 at this same time last season, showing how weather has put a dent in this year’s schedule.
“We needed to play,” Head Coach John Gallagher said. “We needed to get back into the infield and play live competition….we started slow but we picked it up and got back in a groove on offense and defense.”
Canyon Lake certainly looked good defensively as the infield was flawless in this game and the offense batted .333 which is lower than their team .393 average going into this game.
Kat Weber is starting to get her groove as district approaches
But those rallies are a thing of beauty and they will certainly help, as this team readies themselves for district play next week.
“Our 1-9 hitters in our line-up are a lot more confident than our past teams,” Coach Gallagher said confidently.
Four hits, two walks, and forcing two errors helped keep this rally going as the Hawks continued to relish with their rallies.
Last year it was the bat of Alexis Robinson after a decent freshman year to an incredible sophomore year in the batters box that ballooned her average.
Now, Kat Weber seems to be that person making waves with her prowess at the plate in her sophomore season.
Weber is batting .458 this season as she has very few soft hits this season. With her next run she will be the first Hawk player to have double figures with at bats, runs, hits, and runs batted in.
Weber is also helping behind the plate when she threw out a baseruner (her first) and then helping turn a game changing double play with the bases loaded that ended a potential rally inning for Johnson City.
“Fixed memory and go think of throw ‘one’ from my select ball,” Catcher Weber said when going over the double play sequence. (sometime these players talk in code)
Another first for CL’s new catcher this year when she threw out her first runner at second base, “At first I thought I was going to hit the girl batter in the batter’s box so that was why I double clutched the throw to second.”
Canyon Lake is also getting some good at bats after that first wave of batters which explains those death rallies.
Addison Ray is filling that roll with a decent .444 batting average, “This is really cool being new to this team and being able to play and also my first time to play outfield and everyone just knows what to do.”
Finally, the Hawks are having fun with more than one pitcher that can get it it done in the circle as Lauren Mentzer got her second win of the season in this game,
“I am working my way back after three weeks with my endurance,” Mentzer said. It is good having Alexis Robinson being able to come out and pitch after I started to struggle.”
Having more than one pitcher is a luxury the Hawks have not had since the school started.
Now, you can see how important that asset can be as Robinson came into the game with a different velocity and movement on the ball that help to keep the Eagles guessing.
Canyon Lake will debut their district schedule when Yoakum comes to the Hawk Diamond next Tuesday, March 10th.
Go Hawks!!!
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 R H E Johnson City 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 3 6 4 CL Hawks (7-1) 0 6 0 1 0 0 x 7 9 0 name ab r h bi bb so sb misc ave. Carly Dubois 4 1 2 2 0 1 2 .444 Kirsten Jones 3 1 1 1 1 0 1 .385 Alexis Robinson 2 1 0 0 1 0 0 roe .474 Kelsey Ahrens 3 0 1 0 1 1 0 .600 Kat Weber 2 2 1 2 1 0 1 .458 Cameron Berger 2 1 0 0 0 1 0 roe .190 Addison Ray 2 0 1 1 0 0 0 roe .444 Lauren Mentzer 4 0 1 0 0 0 0 .263 Lizzy Henderson 2 0 0 1 0 1 0 .292 Liz Rodriguez 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 .400 Tiare Kacir 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 .333 Cassidy Martin 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 sac 1.000 totals 27 7 9 7 5 4 4 pitching ip h r er bb so W L S era Lauren Mentzer 3 4 2 2 3 1 1 0 0 4.93 Alexis Robinson 4 2 1 1 3 6 0 0 1 3.01 pitches/stikes: Lauren Mentzer: 63/35 Alexis Robinson: 72/45 hp: Robinson
