After what has boiled down to a two-month road trip, Allen Community College’s softball team will finally get to play its first home game of the season today.
The Red Devils will host Cowley County for a doubleheader starting at 1 p.m. marking the first games of the season on ACC’s new artificial turf.
The turf replacement project forced Allen to find alternate locations for its previous “home” games, in Humboldt and Wichita.
Allen will get plenty of opportunities to break in the new turf from there on out, with home dates Tuesday against Neosho County, May 1 against Fort Scott, May 3 against Cloud County and May 6 against Kansas City Kansas.
Allen played a pair of games Thursday at Highland, dropping both, 13-5 and 9-1.
The Red Devils closed an early five-run deficit to one in the opener, but Highland ended with a kick, scoring four runs in both the fifth and sixth innings.
The Scotties led 5-0 before Allen got on the board in the top of the third with Trista Argabright’s steal of home.
Things looked even brighter in the top of the fifth when Argabright walked, Alayna Bround reached on a bunt single and Bella Gravatt reached base on a fielder’s choice.
Kobe McDonald drove in a run with a sacrifice fly, Mikayla Long drove in Brown with a sacrifice bunt, and Andrea Wilson made it 5-4 with an RBI single.
A pair of Allen errors led to a four-spot for Highland in the bottom of the inning.
Allen rebounded when Brown drove in Cynae Wiley with a single to make it 9-5, but the Red Devils left the bases loaded.
Highland then ended the game with a three-run blast in the bottom of the sixth, creating the eight-run spread.
Brown had a pair of singles, while Long and Wilson singled once for Allen’s offense.
Wilson took the loss, giving up eight hits with two strikeouts. Madelynn Collins came on in relief, allowing two walks in her inning of work.
HIGHLAND again jumped out in front, but didn’t allow much of an ACC comeback in the finale.
The Scotties led 5-0 after one and 9-0 after two.
