LADY BEARS GET 6A-CENTRAL RUN-RULE WIN AT HOME

Two weeks ago, Northside pitcher Cailin Massey and the Lady Bears suffered a tough-luck defeat to Bryant in the 6A-Central conference opener. On Tuesday, when the Lady Bears resumed conference play, Massey helped make sure they avoided a similar end result. Massey pitched four innings and struck out nine batters, while going 3-for-4 at the plate with an RBI as Northside scored four in the first and eventually rolled to a 13-3 five-inning run-rule win against Mount St. Mary at Grizzly Field. “I feel like I did pretty good; I feel like I was really proud of our team, it was only our second conference game so it’s definitely good to get a win, especially coming back from Bryant two weeks ago. ... I feel like that’s a good foundation and I can work up from there as well,” Massey said. “We’ve had like one or two home games, so it was nice to come get a home win, especially a conference home win and I feel like that’s a good place for us to start in conference.” Northside (6-5, 1-1) began conference play two weeks ago on the short end of a 1-0 loss in nine innings against Bryant. Then last week, the Lady Bears went 1-2 playing tough competition at a tournament in Florida. “It was fun, it was challenging, we learned a lot and we got better from it,” Northside coach Kelly Nickell said. “Are we where we want to be? No, we still have some base-running issues that we’ve got to cover and get better at (doing). “Defense is pretty solid, hitting (Tuesday) was pretty solid.” In fact, eight of the nine Lady Bears in the lineup drove in runs. “I liked the fact that one through nine batted well; Kylie (Templemeyer) in the nine hole, she hit it well,” Nickell said. “There were a few of them that had been in a few slumps over spring break and Mairady (Dempsey) was one of them, and for her to get out of that was much needed. “That was one of the things I had been harping on was we were leaving a lot of runners on base down in Florida. We were putting them in position and not moving them, and so that’s a good testament that we’ve been working hard in practice.” Northside set the tone in the first inning by scoring four times, including RBI singles from Hannah Entrekin and Dempsey. After the Belles (6-4, 0-3) got on the scoreboard with a run in the top of the third, the Lady Bears broke it open in their half of the inning, scoring six runs for a 10-1 lead. Northside got RBI hits from Jenna Wilson, Aleigha Harrison, Danessa Teague, Templemeyer and Entrekin, who had two more RBIs. Chloe Ray tripled that inning as well. Then in the bottom of the fourth, the Lady Bears added three more runs, highlighted by an RBI triple from Shanoe Teague and capped by Massey’s two-out RBI single. Massey allowed two earned runs on seven hits through four innings to get the win. She had six of her nine strikeouts over the first two innings. On offense, Massey was 3-for-4 with a pair of runs scored, while Entrekin was 2-for-4 with three RBIs. In her last two games, Entrekin has driven in eight runs. For Mount St. Mary, Ava Fischer was 2-for-3 with RBI singles in the third and fifth innings. Olivia Coppens went 2-for-2 as well. Northside continues conference action on Friday with a road trip to face Conway.

LADY BEARS GET 6A-CENTRAL RUN-RULE WIN AT HOME

BUCK RINGGOLD

Times Record | 3/27/2019

PHOTO CREDIT: Jamie Mitchell