Emily Hall has been getting on base, driving in runs, and scoring for the Lady Tigers. But she hasn’t hit the ball especially hard for the past couple of weeks. Tuesday night, that changed when she drilled a two-run homer over the left-field fence to put away a 4-0 win over Nixa at home.
“I’ve been putting a lot of pressure on myself lately, and I’ve been really uptight,” Hall says. “She wasn’t giving me much to hit, so when I saw it, I knew I had to wait and stay back and relax.”
Hall ended the game with three runs batted in. The other came on a line drive single that scored Caty Eby in the bottom of the third. Hall has the the highest batting average among starters, is second in on-base percentage to Eby, and is second to Kami Holt in slugging percentage. But she still wasn’t happy with the way she’d been hitting the ball before Tuesday.
“In the numbers, the could be little bitty blooper hits,” she says. “It feels good to finally hit one hard.”
The Lady Tigers struggled for much of the night against the off-speed pitching of Rylie Bennett.
“We’re seeing slower pitching and that’s hard on us. It’s just tough to hit pitches like that,” says coach Lee Dishman. “When a girl is going to throw change-ups all the time and throw it on the outside corner at that speed, it’s tough to change your level and drive it to right center, but we keep preaching it because we keep seeing it.”
Emily Hall hit the ball harder than anyone against the off-speed pitching of Rylie Bennett. She was responsible for driving in three of the Lady Tigers’ four runs, including two RBIs on her long home run over the left field fence in the bottom of the 5th inning. For her performance, she’s the Country Couture Player of the Game. All season long, Country Couture Boutique is sponsoring a player of the game for Lady Tigers softball. Stop in to their store across from Casey’s on Highway 174 for a complete selection of softball and other Tiger and Lady Tiger apparel.
Even when the Lady Tiger offense was struggling, pitcher Rachel Rook continued to cruise along. She struck out 12 batters, allowed two hits, and walked one. It’s a sign of her dominating season that even that stat line wasn’t considered up to her usual standards.
“Rachel didn’t throw it extremely well tonight, but she gutted through it and got it done,” says Dishman. “Usually, (the ball-strike count is) going 0-2, 0-1 with Rachel, then you’re in trouble.”
Republic is now 14-1 overall, and 3-0 in the Central Ozark Conference. They travel to Willard for another COC game Thursday evening.
The JV team won 14-6. The Lady Tigers’ offensive outburst included a grand slam by Karleigh Summers.
