Centralia didn’t show all of its cards on Tuesday night.
Two weeks before districts, the Class 3 No. 3 Lady Panthers lost 15-4 to Class 3 No. 1 Chillicothe in six innings at home. Chillicothe …
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Centralia didn’t show all of its cards on Tuesday night.
Two weeks before districts, the Class 3 No. 3 Lady Panthers lost 15-4 to Class 3 No. 1 Chillicothe in six innings at home. Chillicothe (21-1), who is in Centralia’s district this season for the first time, won its 21st straight game while Centralia (18-6) sustained its worst loss in terms of runs allowed and margin since a 15-1 loss to Neosho last year in the Warrensburg tournament.
Head coach Liz Bostick said she had a different left fielder, right fielder, third baseman, first baseman and pitcher. Her all-state pitcher Jaylynn Brown played right field one night after pitching four perfect innings in a 19-0 win at Clarence Cannon Conference foe South Shelby (1-12). Bostick said she didn’t want Chillicothe seeing Centralia’s best lineup so close to districts, especially Brown.
“If they weren’t a district opponent, I totally would be playing it straight up,” Bostick said. “I didn’t want to throw Jaylynn. It was to not allow them to see her and not allow them to look at her pitches. Districts are too close. If this was an early season, I would have said, ‘Yeah, I could do it.’”
Chillicothe appeared to have a similar idea as it didn’t have its all-state pitcher Landry Marsh in the circle. Jordan Foster threw instead and struck out 10 and allowed six hits in six innings.
The Lady Hornets finished with 14 hits. Hope Donoho hit two home runs and had five RBIs, and Ellie Acree had three RBIs.
Bostick said Centralia did get a read on Chillicothe if it faces them for the district championship. The Lady Panthers did win at Chillicothe last season 12-3 before the Lady Hornets won the Class 3 state championship. Brown allowed three unearned runs and struck out 14 in seven innings against a lineup with six starters from Tuesday’s lineup.
“Jaylynn is going to put a lot of those hits to rest,” Bostick said. “That will help us tremendously.”
Bostick said the defense still looked good as she mentioned good plays from catcher Ealynne Bostick and center fielder Blakely VanDyke. There were also many plays that were just out of reach of some diving Lady Panthers.
“I love seeing my kids diving for balls and making some of those plays,” Bostick said. “Us making some reads, diving plays and having a catcher come back and tag a girl out after backing up a throw. There were several good plays like some girls making some catches at the fence. Blakely VanDyke had one at the fence that was a really good play.”
Bostick said she expects the defense to be even better in a potential rematch when Centralia has its usual lineup out there. The longer defensive innings on Tuesday might have contributed to the lower offensive output, according to Bostick, but she still wanted to see the Lady Panthers score 6-8 runs.
VanDyke had two strong final at bats with a RBI triple and a two-RBI home run to finish 2-for-3 with three RBIs, Ealynne Bostick had a RBI single, and Karli Andersen had a single and run. One at bat prior to the home run, Avery Bruns hit a RBI single in a rare start for her at first base in the first of two straight at bats where the Lady Panthers were one strike away from losing via run rule in the fifth inning.
Centralia has seen tough pitching at points this season, like at the Warrensburg tournament at University of Central Missouri, so Bostick said the offense was the biggest disappointment from Tuesday.
“We should’ve done better,” Bostick said. “We had some good hits, but we just didn’t string enough together to move runners. That was my biggest regret from the night.”
Centralia (4-0 CCC) is scheduled to play at Clarence Cannon Conference foe Clark County (7-8, 0-2 CCC) at 5 p.m. Thursday. The Lady Panthers are then the No. 1 seed in their home tournament on Saturday, and they play California (7-13) starting at 9 a.m. that day.
