DEGRAFF – Miami East improved to 10-1 on the season with a hard-fought 7-4 win over Riverside on Wednesday.
“We got a good win tonight at Riverside,” commented Miami East coach Brian Kadel. “We had several players get big hits when we needed them and our defense also came up with plays to get us out of a jam late in the game.”
Riverside isn’t a team who typically surrenders a lot of runs as it has a very talented pitcher in junior Alaina Snow, but Miami East is a well rounded offensive team who finds ways to score.
Snow did strike out 14 Miami East batters, but the Lady Vikings were able to take advantage of four fielding errors by Riverside with clutch hits to put runs on the board. In all, Miami East tallied 10 hits as a team.
Miami East scored a run in the first and 3 in the third to take a 4-0 lead before Riverside got on the board with a run in the bottom the third.
After the Lady Vikings scored another run in the top of the fifth, Riverside put together a huge three-run fifth inning to cut the margin to 5-4.
Fortunately, senior hurler Kyleigh Kirby and the Lady Viking defense were able to hold Riverside scoreless the rest of the way while the offense plated a run in the sixth and another in the seventh for the 7-4 win.
Kirby went the distance on the rubber as she allowed 4 runs on 6 hits and struck out 6. She also helped out her cause at the plate by connecting home run and driving in 3 runs on 2 hits.
Jacqueline Kadel and Reagan Howell had a pair of hits, while Rachael Haak doubled.