- CIF Sac-Joaquin

ELK GROVE, CA (MPG) - It’s not often you get a 10-inning nail bitter between two forces in the Delta such as the Sheldon Huskies and the Pleasant Grove Eagles, much less a freshman tossing 9.1 innings, allowing no runs and 19 strikeouts for a Husky 3-2 win to move to 3-0 in league. The game’s outcome changed drastically with the constant calling of illegal pitches on the pitcher who started this game, Kwinci Brown, for the Huskies, which as a result pitched .2 innings and gave way to freshman Micah Kennedy. The first run of the ballgame for the Eagles came while Brown was still pitching, thanks to aggressive baserunning from Shealynn Stinson, who led off the game for the Eagles with a walk. Stinson reached second following a groundout when Riley Bigley hit a ground ball that tipped off the first baseman’s glove and rolled to the second baseman, which was then picked up and thrown to first for the out which allowed Stinson to score from second. “That’s something we work a lot on is being aggressive on the bases and that’s an example why on taking two bases on a groundball instead of one and we scored the only run for 10 innings,” Cherry said. The next batter following the run, Brown got to a 3-0 count after being called on back-to-back-to-back illegal pitches and Kennedy entered the game. What followed was nothing short of dominance, which included her racking up 19 strikeouts. “She moves the ball really well,” Huskies head coach Mary Jo Truesdale said. “She’s just so focused, she spins the ball and she’s a competitor and we call our bullpen ‘bulldogs’ now because that’s what they’re becoming as both Kwinci and Micah don’t want to lose and it doesn’t matter that they’re a freshman and sophomore they just want to compete at the highest level.” Kennedy’s counterpart, Madeline Lawson, matched her for most of the ballgame as she tossed 10 innings and only allowed four hits but came up on the losing side of things. In a 10-inning game, head coach Brian Cherry described his team and his starting pitcher as tough to be able to stay in the game for so long. “To go 10 innings in a 1-1 game is taxing mentally,” Cherry. “It takes a lot to pitch that much and I hate to see it to be honest when you’re pitching staff is down to one so it’s tough but she (Lawson) has a lot of grit and fight. In the second inning, Kennedy led off the inning with a walk for the Huskies and had Kayla Leone come in to run as a courtesy for the pitcher when she later reached third and Reyna Ozuna hit a ground ball that was ruled as an error on the first baseman according to MaxPreps led to an RBI and a 1-1 tie game.

Huskies, Eagles Provide 10-Inning Nail-Biter