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COLORADO COUNTY SHOWDOWN
The Columbus Lady Cardinals hosted the Rice Consolidated Lady Raiders last Wednesday and picked up a big win over their cross-county rivals.
The Lady Cards defeated the Lady Raiders with a score of 16-1 for their 11th win of the season.
The game started out with the Lady Raiders getting on the board first thanks to some hot bats leading things off. Lexia Rangel led the Lady Raiders off and got on base with a single to give them some momentum early.
That was followed up by her sister Leanna Rangel hitting a single as well to get two runners on base. Then Sierra Pena stepped up to bat and launched a ball deep into the outfield to record a double.
That double from Pena brought Lexia Rangel home to open the scoring 1-0 for the Lady Raiders. Allie Cranek then struck out a batter for the Lady Cards, followed by a hit by a pitch to load the bases.
With the bases loaded Cranek played lights out and struck out the next two batters to get out of a very sticky situation. This put the Lady Cards on offense, and they took full advantage of the opportunity.
Trinity Hopkins was up first for the Lady Cards, and she was walked to get a runner on base. Kaylea Foster then hit a pop fly that was caught by the Lady Raiders for the first out of the inning.
Cranek then stepped into the box and smacked a ball deep into the outfield for a stand-up double. Cranek’s hit allowed Hopkins to get back to home plate to tie the game up at 1-1.
Emma Beauchamp was up next, and she hit a single to get two runners on base when Aggie Rodriguez stepped up to bat. Rodriguez stepped into a pitch from the Lady Raiders to send the ball flying over the wall in the outfield for a three-run homerun to extend the Lady Cards lead to 4-1.
That was all the offense the Lady Cards had int he first inning but after a pop fly and two strikeouts from Cranek the Lady Cards were back on offense. Lucy Schobel then led the bottom of the second inning off with a double, and the Lady Cards picked up where they left off in the first inning.
After Schobel’s double, she did not have to wait long to get back to home plate as Demi Roecker hit a triple to bring Schobel home to go up 5-1. Hopkins then hit a fly by that was caught by the Lady Raiders for the first out, but Kaylea Foster hit a single to bring Roecker home and the Lady Cards now led with a score of 6-1.
Cranek also hit a pop fly that was caught by the Lady Raiders for the second out of the inning. But then Beauchamp hit a single followed by an RBI single from Rodriguez that scored two runs followed by back-to-back walks.
Schobel then hit her second double of the inning to score two more runs to go up 10-1. Roecker was then walked, and Hopkins got some redemption for her earlier pop fly by hitting a double to score some more runs.
The Lady Cards led 12-1 by the end of the second and in the third Schobel and Roecker came up big again. Schobel hit a single and Roecker hit a double which brought home a total of four runs to arrive at the final score of 16-1.
Both teams will be back in action on Friday, March 20, when the Lady Cards will face Tidehaven and the Lady Raiders will play Palacios, and both are home games starting at 6:30 p.m.
