Knights top Mounts

Ch- Ch- Changes!

The days may seem the same, but there’s definitely been changes for Hempfield softball over the last two weeks. Changes as reflected in the sudden turnaround of the Black Knights’ fortunes.

The Knights (6-4 Lancaster-Lebanon League Section One, 6-5 overall) won for the fourth time in five starts Friday afternoon in Landisville, walking off Ephrata by the mercy rule, 10-0, in a Section One-Section Two crossover contest.

Elizabeth Williams’ two-run homer over the left-field fence capped an afternoon where the Knights banged out 10 hits and took advantage of five errors by the Mountaineers (5-4, 5-5) and a non-error error on Williams’ dropped foul popup, one pitch prior to the homer.

“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, please don’t get it.’ I was really scared,” said Williams.

“Hitting is one of the parts we’ve been struggling to come together with as a team,” said the senior shortstop who finished the day 2-for-4 with four runs scored and the three RBI. “We’ve been hitting the ball, but just right at players.”

While six of the Knights 10 runs were unearned, the 10 hits were most definitely earned, five coming on two-strike pitches – three of those five on 0-2. Three of the five errors came on two-strike pitches.

“That’s so unlike us,” said cocoach Whitney Brenneman. “We struggled with that at the beginning of the year. We told them, ‘Look. Just make contact. Put the ball in play and things will happen.’ I think they’re finally grasping that concept.”

While the Knights were finding green grass, the Mounts were stymied by the offerings of Hempfi eld starter Courtney Guthrie, who fashioned a one-hit, five-inning shutout on just 54 pitches. She didn’t walk a batter while striking out six. Kaliana Auchey’s second-inning single – she was out trying to stretch it into a double on a great throw by center fielder Kali Peifer – was the only Mounts hit.

The string of zeros extended Ephrata’s skein of scoreless innings to 18, since the first inning of a loss to Penn Manor on Wednesday. Over that three-game spiral, they’ve recorded just six hits.

“We made some better pitch selections than we have in the past couple games,” offered Mounts coach Katie Yohe. Credit due to the Knights defense which turned six ground ball outs, and to Peifer, who snared Kaylee Walters deep fly to center in the fourth inning, and to Carley Ernst, who snagged Auchey’s liner to right in the fifth.

It was fitting that Williams should end the game as her first-inning, two-out pop single in between the mound and first base got the Knights offense in gear.

Avery Landis (2-for-3, three runs, two RBIs) tripled to the base of the fence in right center, scoring Williams, and scored on a single from Mikayla Hughes (3-for-3, three RBIs, run).

Back-to-back errors opened the Hempfield third, with Hughes singling in a run and Olivia Cover plating a run on a sacrifice bunt. Cover would drive in two in the Knights’ four-run fourth on a ground-rule double in the right-field corner, pushing the Mounts to the brink of the mercy rule.

“We have to clean up our defense. We can’t be in a hitting funk and not play clean behind ourselves,” said Yohe. “Some days we’re super clean and other days we make those little mistakes. We’ve got to find that balance and get some consistency.”

Over in the home dugout, the view was brighter. “They’re relaxed and they’re just playing ball,” Brenneman said. “They know they have what it takes and I think they finally understand that.”