Lady Bucks sweep Spartans, tied for league lead
It wasn’t as easy as originally planned, but the Lowry High School softball team remained in the hunt for the Northern 3A East regular season championship and the top seed in the Northern 3A Regional tournament in May.
Lowry hosted Spring Creek last week and needed to come from behind in two of the games.
The Lady Bucks beat the Spartans 3-2 on Thursday and 10-0 and 9-8 on Friday to improve to 8-1 in the Northern 3A East and 17-3 overall.
Lowry 3,
Spring Creek 2
In Thursday’s contest, Spring Creek used a single from Alyson Clarke to take a 1-0 lead and that held up until Lowry tied the game on a sacrifice fly by Jada Matheny.
The Spartans grabbed a 2-1 advantage in the top of the seventh as Clarke led off with a double and eventually scored on a ground ball.
After struggling on offense for much of the day, the Lady Bucks struck gold in the bottom of the seventh inning.
Bailey Peterson led off with a walk, followed by singles from Crisslyn Rodriguez and Matheny.
With the bases loaded, Hayden Case provided the winning runs with a walk-off double to the right field fence that scored Peterson and Rodriguez.
Lowry had just five hits, with three of them coming in the seventh inning.Savannah Stoker, Megan Cook, Case, Rodriguez and Matheny each had a hit.
Bree Dunckhorst picked up the win in the circle, as she allowed two runs on two hits. She struck out 12 and walked three.
Lowry 10,
Spring Creek 0
It was a much different outcome in the opener on Friday, as Stoker scattered four hits in a complete-game shutout. The junior struck out 10 and walked one.
At the plate, the Lady Bucks scored in four of the five innings and grabbed a 1-0 lead in the first inning on a ground out by Cook that plated Case, who led off the frame with a double.
Lowry added four runs in the second inning, beginning with a double my Maddison McClure that scored Peterson and a single by Case to bring home McClure. Cook added the final blow, with a double to score Matheny and Case.
Lowry scored a single run in the third inning and ended the game in the fifth inning on the 10-run rule with four more runs.
Stoker provided the game-ending runs with a two-RBI double that scored Matheny and Case.
Case, Cook and Rodriguez each had two hits and Stoker, Peterson and McClure had one hit apiece.
Lowry 9,
Spring Creek 8
In the series finale, Lowry was forced to overcome a 5-0 deficit and an 8-8 tie in the sixth inning to come back for the win.
Trailing 5-0 in the bottom of the third inning, Lowry battled back with seven runs.
The Lady Bucks got on the board when Case doubled home Peterson and the Spring Creek lead shrunk to 5-3 when Natalya Guizar doubled home McClure and Case.
Lowry tied the game at 5-5 off the bat of Stoker who hit a two-run home run. A ground ball out by Cambria Tisue gave Lowry a 6-5 lead, as that scored Cook and Peterson drove home Rodriguez for the seventh run of the inning.
Spring Creek got a run back in the top of the sixth inning to cut the deficit to 7-6, but Lowry got it back in the bottom of the fifth on an RBI-single by Matheny to score Tisue.
The back-and-forth battle continued, as Spring Creek rallied for two runs in the sixth inning to tie the game at 8-8.
The Lady Bucks had one last rally left in them as, Stoker provided the winning run with a home run in the bottom of the sixth.
Stoker would get the final three outs from the circle in the seventh to earn the win as well.
Dunckhorst started for Lowry and allowed six runs on eight hits. She struck out nine and walked one.
Stoker led the way with three hits and Guizar, Rodriguez and Peterson collected two hits apiece.
Lowry was scheduled to play South Tahoe on Tuesday and results were not available at press time.
Lowry hosts Churchill County this weekend, beginning with a single game on Friday at 3 p.m.
They play a doubleheader on Saturday at 11 a.m. Both teams are tied for first in the Northern 3A East at 8-1.
The winner of the series will likely claim the No. 1 seed for the Northern 3A Regional Championship at Wooster High School in Reno from May 11-13.
The No. 1 seed receives a first-round bye.