GRAFTON, W.Va. — Grafton softball coach Gray Chambers wants to see his team hit its stride offensively ahead of postseason play.
That doesn’t necessarily mean hard contact throughout the lineup as much as it applies to consistently putting the ball in play and executing in situational spots.
On Thursday against Lewis County, the Bearcats scored in every inning they batted in, struck out twice and made the most of successful small ball, which combined with Lillie Crimm’s pitching dominance led to an 8-0 victory over the Minutemaids.
“We try to poke the bear and see what happens and it showed us there were a couple holes we could manipulate and we took it,” Chambers said. “The girls did exactly what we asked them to do and that put us where we needed to be.”
Crimm recorded four of her 12 stakeouts in the first inning, but on the third, Courtney Boggs reached courtesy of a wild pitch to prolong the inning with two outs. Ashley Crook followed with a bloop single to give Lewis (14-5) an early scoring threat, but Crimm struck out Jaylen Smith to escape unscathed.
Crimm then helped her cause from the No. 3 spot in the batting order with a one-out single in the home half of the first, and teammate Chelsea Mauller followed with a single that allowed Isabella Hayhurst to score the first run.
Crook retired the next two Bearcat batters to stand a pair in scoring position and keep the LCHS deficit at one.
But after Crimm struck out the side in the second, Grafton (13-6) got a leadoff walk from Lydia Wildroudt, which was followed by a bunt single off the bat of P.J. McGinnis. Shyann Trimble followed with a two-run single to right for a 3-0 lead.
Lewis again put together a scoring threat in the third with Addison Posey’s bloop single, a Grafton error and a base-on-balls drawn by Crook creating a bases loaded situation with two outs.
Crimm buckled down and struck out Smith on a full count pitch to maintain the shutout.
“When Lillie gets in some trouble, they work themselves out. The team chemistry helps out a lot,” Chambers said. “When there is trouble, we’re done with getting down on each other. We bring each other up and that seems to work out pretty well.”
Grafton continued to make the most of small ball in the home half of the third, and a leadoff single from Mauller was followed by Karin Wildroudt’s bunt single. Then came a bunt from Gracie Poling that looked as though it would lead to the first out, but an error at third base instead led to courtesy runner Maddie Fryer scoring the game’s fourth run.
McGinnis had a successful sacrifice bunt later in the fourth that brought in another run for a 5-0 advantage.
“It’s contagious and once it gets in somebody’s head on the defensive end, it’s hard to come back out of that,” Chambers said. “We’ll take advantage of it until we can’t.”
Mauller added a run-scoring single in the fourth and Poling brought a pair home with a single to center that created an 8-0 lead, allowing Crimm to retire the side in order in the fifth to make it an abbreviated game.
Grafton finished with a 10-3 edge in hits with Mauller finishing 3-for-3 and Crimm recording two hits.
Crimm issued one walk in the dominant pitching performance.
“She’s an experienced pitcher and throws well, and she works well together with our sophomore catcher [McGinnis],” Chambers said.
The Bearcats had one error to five for the Minutemaids.
Crook struck out two and walked one over four frames.