Earlier this week, Iola softball opened up its series versus Osawatomie with a 2-1 eight-inning win.
That extra-inning mojo stayed alive for the Fillies into Thursday night when they used it again to break a seven-inning 0-0 stalemate by scoring three runs in the eighth inning to secure a split of the 4A-II state runner-up Independence Bulldogs.
Iola won that game 3-2 after falling 14-7 in game one. With the split, they move to 4-6 so far this season.
Well settle for a split, head coach Chris Weide said. Osawatomie is a great club but Indy got second at state last year and they had their top pitcher back. So for us to beat them, it should give us a lot of confidence going forward. Its just a great win for the program.
The Fillies were without starting pitcher Reece Murry and instead turned to sophomores Kailey Schinstock and Jenna Miller to try and lead them to victory.
Schinstock was able to keep pace with her offense for the majority of game one and only got tripped up after Independence scored eight unanswered in the fifth and sixth innings.
She ended up allowing 14 runs on 11 hits with five walks in the loss.
Senior Paige Burrough led the Fillies with three hits from her lead-off spot followed by two by senior Madisyn Holloway.
Meanwhile, Miller really was on the top of her game in what was her first varsity start of the season. She threw seven shutout innings and allowed just two runs on four hits.
Jenna pitched excellent, Weide said. Without Reece, youre just not sure what youre going to get out of the other girls because they havent pitched much varsity but Jenna and Kailey, as well, both did a great job.
Weide was also eager to praise his defense which has really come around this season.
Our defense really made the difference for us, Weide said. If we have someone who can come in and throw strikes, then our defense can make plays off of that and it really gives the pitchers confidence. Having (Nissa Fountain, Sadrie Overall and Becca Sprague) in the outfield, that gives us the best outfield weve had since Ive been here. Theyre all really dynamic and can run things down in the gap. They cover a lot of ground.
Seniors Kendra Sprague and Mia Aronson led the way with two hits each.
The Fillies will be back in action on Tuesday when they host Parsons. They will then travel to Neodesha on Thursday.
Weve got some winnable games coming up, Weide said. We told the girls that were really proud of how theyre playing and were going to give them a couple of days off but we want them to come back ready to play because these are games that we could win that would help us in our regional seeding.
