Jackson softball wins fifth consecutive game

Jackson celebrates at the plate after Maddie Stelling hit a home run in the Sept. 11 game between the Indians and Cape Central.

Photo Courtesy of Carrie Trovillion - Freelance Photographer

The Jackson Indians softball defeated the Cape Central Tigers 15-0 in four innings on Wednesday at the Jackson City Park.

After holding the Tigers scoreless in the top of the first, the Indians scored 12 runs in the bottom half of the inning.

Jackson’s Ashlyn Dawes doubled, scoring one run, Maddie Stelling, Rilee Monighan and Bella Rose each drove in runs with a single. Dawes singled her second time up in the inning and Stelling hit a three-run home run to bring the lead to 12-0.

Indians head coach Shawn Wilding said scoring runs early in the game is important for his team.

“Well, the train's got to move like this, first-inning runs. That's 21 runs in the last first three innings, so the last three games we’re starting the game off, scoring at least an average of seven runs in the first inning,” Wilding said. “So getting out early and getting the offense going is key, when our bats get going the team gets going.”

Jackson added three more runs for the early 15-0 win while in the circle Kimmora Carothers went the full four innings with just three hits allowed to Central’s Lilah Pattengill, Haley Wolfe and Abby Sandusky.

Wilding said it was good to see his team bounce back after a tough weekend at the Rockwood Tournament.

“That second day at Rockwood Summit, we finally found our thing. We beat Farmington by ten, and we had a walk-off win against Lindbergh which was huge for us because we were losing in the last inning 5-2,” Wilding said. “We’ve faced adversity and we’ve been in every type of game so far this year. We narrowly lost an 11-inning game, narrowly won a walk-off game and lost to Lindbergh with a chance to have the tying run up to the plate that game. So we're seeing things that we need to do and the bats are coming alive at the right time.”

Jackson travels to East Carter on Thursday for a matchup with the Redbirds while Cape Central heads to Naylor the same day to take on the Eagles.