Spanish Fork and Ridgeline play softball in Spanish Fork on Wednesday, April 26, 2023. Spanish Fork received 6-1. Scott G Winterton, Deseret Information
All season lengthy, the Ridgeline Riverhawks have taken down their opponents one after one other, with a mid-March recreation towards Spanish Fork being the one blemish on their in any other case excellent season.
However when given an opportunity at redemption Wednesday night, the Riverhawks had been unable to beat Spanish Fork in a 6-1 victory for the Dons.
Spanish Fork senior pitcher Avery Sapp made issues extraordinarily tough for Ridgeline. She completed with 11 strikeouts as almost each Riverhawk batter struggled to hit her pitches and was a big motive why Ridgeline was solely capable of rating one run all through the sport.
“We performed them in St. George, and I wished to ensure we settled that it wasn’t only a fluke,” mentioned Sapp. “I had confidence with my protection at present and I wished to say due to (athletic coach) Rory (Eyring) who has been taking good care of my arm. Obtained some remedy and I felt rather a lot higher at present.
“Generally we've on and off days, however we all the time come again and make changes. That’s a capability our complete workforce has. None of us have an issue making changes and I believe all of us do an excellent job of placing the work in and dealing collectively.”
To make issues worse for Ridgeline, even when it did hit one in every of Sapp’s pitches, the Spanish Fork protection was fast to cowl.
“Avery pitched among the finest video games I’ve seen,” mentioned Spanish Fork head coach Natalie Jarvis. “She was on level; she was on fireplace proper from the get-go and by no means let up.
“We wished this recreation. Fielding sensible we had been sharp. We made a pair errors, however we got here proper again off of them. That’s what we’ve been saying, “‘Begin robust and end stronger,’” and I’m very happy with them at present. They got here to play and got here to win.”
Spanish Fork held a slim 2-0 lead heading into the fourth inning. When the Dons had been at bat, it was none apart from Sapp who opened the inning with a house run.
Sapp was instantly adopted up by her teammate, Alyce Archuleta, who hit a house run of her personal to offer the Dons a 4-0 lead.
“You already know what, they’re hitters,” mentioned Jarvis. “They go up there to hit and when pitch comes, they’re not afraid to leap on it. We’re hitting workforce and so they wished to win at present. It was a giant win for us.
“We performed Ridgeline down in St. George it was an excellent shut recreation with them, and we received however we wished to place the exclamation on it at present to point out the place we’re at as a workforce. Ridgeline is a good workforce, they’re nicely coached and a dominant workforce so it was win and recreation.”
Ridgeline lastly scored a run within the sixth inning, however by then it was too late for the Riverhawks to make their method again into the sport.