PHILIPPI, W.Va. — Lincoln’s Delaney Haller has been a force in the pitching circle throughout her high school career.
Now a senior, Haller has expanded her repertoire to consistently throw at three different speeds. In turn, the Fairmont State signee has become even tougher to solve. The latest example came Thursday at Philip Barbour when Haller overcame struck out 14 without issuing a base-on-balls while limiting the Colts to five hits to lead the Class AA No. 8 Cougars to a 7-2 victory.
“She has the changeup, a real fastball and then where she can let something off of it. That’s a big plus for her,” Lincoln head coach Yancey Weaver said. “Mixing that up has been good. Her work ethic is tremendous. I can’t put into words how much she puts the extra time in.”
Lincoln moved to 5-0 despite falling behind by a pair of runs in the home half of the first inning.
Philip Barbour (4-2) got a first-inning double from Katie Kennedy, who came around to score on the first of Lincoln’s two errors in the frame. The second one came on Makayla Gonzales’ single to left, allowing Katelyn Cooper to come home for the second run.
The Colts carried that 2-0 advantage into the third on the strength of two scoreless frames from Katielynn Warner, before LHS got even in the third. That came after Haller doubled to center field to plate Emalee Brown, who had singled with one out.
Alexis Williams followed with an infield that brought Haller in with the tying run.
“I liked the way we didn’t get down on ourselves,” Weaver said.
Haller struck out the first two batters of the third to give her seven strikeouts to that point. She then surrendered a triple to Avery McDaniel, but worked around it by inducing a ground ball to second off the bat of Cooper for the final out.
Lincoln gained its first advantage in the fourth after Kariss Drain led off with a single and Aliyah Elder followed with a base-on-balls. Katie Shingleton followed with a single that scored Drain and left PBHS facing a one-run deficit. The Colts then became their own worst enemy, committing an error on consecutive plays, the first of which allowed Elder to score and the latter enabling Shingleton to touch the plate for her team’s fifth run.
“I don’t like that it happened, but I’m glad that it happened, because I wanted to see how we’re going to bounce back from stuff like that,” Weaver said of the early deficit. “If we do make mistakes, do we let those mistakes go and not carry it on at the plate? We overcame tonight’s mistakes.”
The way Haller was in command of her pitches, that was more than enough offense. She struck out the first two batters in retiring the side in the fourth, and overcame a one-out Preslee Fincham triple in the fifth by striking out three batters in the inning.
“It looks like she worked on her changeup a good bit this offseason. It’s a hard pitch to hit when you’re geared back waiting for the fastball and she has it now to where it looks the same coming out of her hand as the fastball,” Colts’ head coach Amanda McDaniel said. “It’s hard to sit back and wait for that.”
Williams drew a bases loaded walk in the sixth that upped the Cougars’ advantage to 6-2 and Shingleton belted a solo home run to center in the seventh for the final margin.
“We’ve been hitting the ball up and down the lineup pretty well,” Weaver said.
Haller had multiple strikeouts in each of the first five innings and recorded all but seven of her outs without the Colts putting the ball in play.
“She’s a great pitcher and that’s the best pitcher we’ve seen so far. To change speeds up from what we’ve faced, it’s hard to adjust in the beginning,” McDaniel said. “We had some runners in scoring position and we had a few errors, too, but we’ve kind of done that throughout the season so far. We have to clean it up defensively. I think that’s our biggest issue right now.”
The Cougars eventually got Warner, who was tagged with the loss after allowing five runs on six hits over five innings. She struck out three and issued one walk.
“We didn’t have timely hitting. We’ve hit the ball well so far this season, but we haven’t all connected yet where everybody is hit, hit, hit,” McDaniel said. “That’s what we need to get to.”