Natalie Rogers and Jessye Rowland had three hits each as Lake Hamilton rolled to a 17-0 rout of Lakeside on the road Monday afternoon.
The Lady Wolves (11-5, 5-0 5A/6A-6) scored eight runs in the second inning to stretch to a 12-0 lead, while Lakeside (5-8, 2-6) was held to just two hits.
"It seems like their momentum was down after a few mistakes," said Lake Hamilton head coach Amy Teague. "We kept the gas on, and it seemed that they got down a little bit. We were able to capitalize on mistakes and keep going."
A pair of fielding errors early in the second led to the first two runs in the inning as Sydney Campbell reached on an error before Madison Hardcastle's hit was mishandled to send Campbell home.
A single and walk put runners in the corners before Jessye Rowland hit a single to make it 8-0. After putting runners on the back side of the diamond, Claire Evans hit an RBI single followed by Rogers' RBI double. Rogers then scored on Campbell's RBI single for the 12-0 lead.
Lakeside head coach Josh Bradley said Lake Hamilton did not take it easy on his young team.
"They're a good program," he said. "We've played really well at times, but when it's bad, it's really bad for us. We've got to learn to stop the bleeding on games like this. We're young, and we're still learning to get over tough innings like that. I like my group, and they just keep getting better every day."
Rowland went 3-for-4 at the plate with a pair of doubles with three runs and three RBIs, and Rogers hit 3-for-3 with a double and one run scored with two RBIs.
"Today was their day," Teague said. "It's great to have the number of kids that we have producing. Today was their day; other days it's been other kids. Everybody is not going to have the best game every single night. A lot of teamwork -- if one person gets on, the other person is trying to take the responsibility to move her around. I feel like our team effort has been great. We've done a good job of kind of mixing it up."
Lake Hamilton scored two in the top of the third before scoring three in the top of the fourth to secure the mercy-rule victory.
Hailee Quilici went 2-for-2 with a pair of walks while scoring four runs. She also had one RBI in the fourth.
Charlye Rowland gave up just two hits and one walk while striking out 10 batters in her four innings for the Lady Wolves.
"Charlye has done a good job," Teague said. "She did a good job for us last year, and she's continuing to do a good job for us this year. Annalee Diehl, our senior, she has been starting for us, and she got hurt about a week and a half ago. She sprained her ankle. She's coming back from that; hopefully we'll have her back at the end of the week.
"We've been kind of working with Annalee and Charlye -- Annalee is the starter, and Charlye is the finisher. Charlye has done a great job of pitching last week and probably going to have to go all week this week and get wins for us."
Erika Bettinger collected the loss, giving up 12 earned runs off 18 hits and three walks while striking out two batters. The Lady Rams had three fielding errors that helped contribute to the loss, two of them coming in the second inning.
"We're a product of not too many of our girls play softball throughout the year," Bradley said. "We share them from all different kinds of sports, so we don't get them year-round. We kind of make do with kids when we have them, and we only have them for about three months out of the year.
"They get out here and work hard, and I never question them going hard or whether they're putting in the effort. We just don't make all the plays that we should make, and I understand that. Like I told them, I want them to go as hard as they can go and make the plays that they can make."
Lyca Steelman and Daelyn White registered hits for the Lady Rams, White hitting a double.
The Sentinel-Record incorrectly reported in the April 28 edition Lake Hamilton's game at North Little Rock on April 27 was canceled due to weather. The game was not canceled, and the Lady Wolves won, 7-6. The newspaper regrets the error.
Lakeside is scheduled to host El Dorado (8-9, 2-3) this afternoon. Lake Hamilton is scheduled to host Magnolia (8-7, 3-3).
Sports on 04/10/2018