Softball: Huskies Fall to Saints in Mercy-Rule Loss

After enjoying the thrills of a mercy-rule induced victory last night, the Flint Hill softball team felt the agony of such a defeat in Thursday's game against St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School.

The Huskies fell to the Saints 14-2 after six innings.

But it didn't start off disastrous. In fact, the Huskies were still very much in the game until the fifth inning, down 5-1. Then the Saints' offense began to not only get good swings on Maggie Jardot's pitches, but also take advantage of the Huskies' errors.

"We were competing for a good three or four innings," head coach Andy Krug said. "Then we had a couple errors, they got a good hit or two and then all of a sudden we've got our heads down. That hurt us. We gave up a big inning and we've got to learn how to stop that."

The fifth inning started with four straight singles to give the Saints two more runs. Then the Huskies started to make mistakes, committing two errors in the Saints' next two at-bats to stretch the Saints' lead 9-1. Catcher Emily Hall would catch a runner stealing at second, and Jardot would strike out a batter to notch two outs, but a groundball from Saints' lead batter Nancy Bateman would score another run for the Saints' last of the inning.

The Huskies would score their last run of the game in the bottom of the fifth, but it did not slow down the momentum of the Saints, who would score four final runs in the sixth to effectively put the game out of reach and win by mercy rule.

Jardot gave up 12 hits, including one home run, but also struck out nine.

Center fielder Bianca Scobie proved to be a bright spot for the Huskies, notching their only two hits and two runs of the game. She stole her way to third base both times, then found her way home thanks to hard hits from Jardot and Hall that were fumbled by the Saints' second and third basemen, respectively.

"She is fearless. I don't think she's been caught stealing yet," Krug said. "I don't have any hesitation sending her. She's quite a weapon when she gets on base."

The Saints' pitcher Alexis Sargent struck out 16 batters.

"We really worked on how to face a fast pitcher like [Sargent]," Krug said. "We worked on shortening up swings to just make contact, but we still have more work to do."

The Huskies are 4-4 heading into their next matchup, which will be at Episcopal at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.