Some timely hitting, solid defense and the pitching of Abby Marsh paid off with a victory for Allen Community College Sunday.
The freshman right-hander delivered her best pitching performance of the season, shutting down visiting Iowa Central on four hits over seven innings.
Meanwhile, Allen’s Morgan Collins and Jena Hendrix drove in all the runs the Red Devils needed in the bottom of the third inning of a 2-1 victory to salvage a split in the doubleheader.
Iowa Western opened the day with a 7-3 victory.
“It was a good answer back, for sure,” Red Devil head coach Nicole Peters said. “Abbie did a good job of keeping them off balance, and she had some good defense behind her.”
The game was highlighted by ACC’s right fielder Kylar Smith, who ran down a long drive at the base of the fence to start the seventh inning.
“The defense definitely backed each other up out there,” Peters said. “It was good to get a split.”
A two-out RBI single in the top of the third put Iowa Western on top, 1-0.
Allen responded quickly. Smith reached on a fielding error, and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt from Brooklyn Goehring.
But a pop out to the next batter threatened to derail the potential rally.
Collins, however, had other plans, ripping a single to left to tie the score. Hendrix then broke the 1-1 deadlock with an RBI double to left.
That was all the margin Marsh needed.
She worked around trouble in the fourth inning after hitting a batter and then allowing a two-out single to put runners at the corners, but she induced a pop fly to Goehring at short to end the threat.
Marsh kept the Tritons hitless over the last three innings to clinch the victory.
She struck out two.
Hendrix had Allen’s only double. Collins and Goehring had singles.
CAMRYNN Yardley started out on a strong note from the mound in Sunday’s opener, but allowed a one-out home run with one out in the second.
