Fillies deposit trio of homers in opener against Burlington

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Sports

March 29, 2017 - 12:00 AM

BURLINGTON — Last season, the Fillies hit one home run all season and that came in the substate game off the bat of Jadyn Sigg.
In the first game of 2017, the Fillies have already tripled that total.
Junior third baseman Chloe Gardner — the second batter to come to the plate in the first inning — took one for a ride over the left field fence to open the scoring.
“I hit it and I was like, ‘That looks really high in the air,’ and then I was like, ‘Oh my, I actually hit that.’” Gardner said. “It was pretty awesome.”
Gardner evidently wanted to prove that her first blast was no fluke because she repeated the feat in the third inning with another round-tripper.
The Fillies’ power wasn’t relegated to just Gardner. Sigg came to the plate two batters later in the third inning and launched a Burlington pitch over the right-center fence for her second home run in as many games — even if nine months separated the two games.
“I didn’t expect it to go over because Chloe had just hit two, so I was like, ‘There is no way,’” Sigg said.
Iola coach Chris Weide says the power doesn’t shock him because he knows how talented this year’s group is.
“I’m not surprised,” Weide said. “They are great athletes and it showed today.”
Unfortunately for the Fillies’ all of their blasts were solo home runs and they built only a 3-0 lead.
After three shutout innings, Iola sophomore Sierra Snavely gave up three runs in the fourth and one each in the fifth and sixth innings.
Iola was able to get another run in seventh on a Sigg RBI to cut the margin to 5-4, but that was a close as Iola got as they suffered the one-run defeat.
“On defense, we might have had some first-game jitters and that goes for coaching too,” Weide said. “I made a few mistakes and I told the girls that we are all going to make mistakes and we just have to pick it up next game and that is what we did.”
Game two didn’t have the offensive power display that game one provided for the Fillies, but the offense was more balanced and that allowed the run production to be even more potent as Iola cruised to an 11-4 victory.
“The best thing about these girls is how they fight every game and we picked it up in the second game and showed just how good we can be,” Weide said.
Snavely allowed Burlington to jump out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning, but the sophomore ace was stellar the rest of the game.
The Fillies racked up 14 hits in game two and they all came from the team’s top five hitters.
Sydney Wade, Riley Murry, Sigg and Gardner each had three hits a piece while Snavely had a pair.
“It is great to see that and it is exciting for everybody,” Weide said. “It builds everybody’s confidence… We have a super-solid top-six and it is one of those deals where if one of them is hitting, it is really contagious.”
No balls sailed over the fence in game two, but Wade, Murry, Sigg and Gardner each had a double to add to the day’s extra-base hit tally.

CATCHER BATTLE
Scout Rush started behind the plate in game one while Kendra Sprague got the nod in game two.
Neither recorded a hit, but Weide saw positives from each player and he says the battle to replace last year’s catcher Ashlie Shields, who now plays for Allen Community College, will continue in the early part of the season.
“Scout does a good job catching and blocking, but we have to work a little bit on her throwing to second,” Weide said. “We gave up a lot of steals. We knew we have a catching competition so Kendra stepped in for the second game and did a great job. We are going to continue to use two catchers for a while and work to figure out who we are going to use at the end of the year.”

UP NEXT
Iola will have its home opener on Saturday when they host Chanute with games starting at 11 a.m.

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