Sports : No-hitter for Cornell as Vikettes split pair against 15th-ranked Williamsburg

Going into Wednesday night’s softball season opener, Vinton-Shellsburg head coach Bari Parrott wasn’t quite sure what to expect as the Vikettes opened on the road against 15th-rated Williamsburg.

It would appear the Vikettes exceeded expectiations.

After dropping the opener to the Raiders in a heartbreaker, 4-2, the Vikettes bounced back in the nightcap behind freshman pitcher Maddie Cornell. In her first varsity start, Cornell twirled a no-hitter at the Williamsburg hitters, gave up one run, and the Vikettes won the second game, 2-1.

Cornell retired the first seven batters she faced, all on ground balls. In the third, the Raiders used a walk, a steal, a passed ball and a ground out to plate their only run of the game. Other than that, there was one V-S error, and another walk, but Cornell managed seven more ground ball outs and three strikeouts. Only two balls left the infield the whole game – a pair lazy fly balls to left fielder Jena Relf.

The Vikettes scored a run in the first, on a two-out walk to Brittany Robertson, followed by three wild pitches that plated the senior second baseman, and gave the Vikettes a 1-0 lead. After the Raiders tied it in the third, the Vikettes came back in the fourth to plate the game-winner.

Relf led off with a single – her third hit of the doubleheader – stole second and went to third on Ashley Boyer’s infield hit. Relf then scored on Kristin Henderson’s groundout, and that would be all the insurance Cornell would need.

The Vikettes ended up with five hits, two by Katie Henderson, who had four hits in seven plate appearances for the night.

In the opener, the Vikettes had a chance early when Katie Henderson singled and Paige Kreutner reached when her sacrifice bunt attempt was booted. But the runners would end up stranded there, at that would prove costly.

In the bottom of the inning, the hosts used a lead-off double, a sacrifice and a single to plate their first run. After Vikette starter Lindsey Noren struck out the next batter looking, a throwing error at first plated a second run. But on the play, right fielder Sydney Etten nailed the batter trying to reach second to end the damage at 2-0.

It would stay that way until the Vikette fifth. Kaley Womochil led off with a solid single to center, then went to second on Mackie Stueck’s sacrifice. Henderson reached on a single, and Kreutner followed with a base hit to plate Womochil and make it a 2-1 game. Robertson grounded out to short to score Henderson, but Kreutner was thrown out at third trying to advance. But, the Vikettes had tied things at 2-2.

The Vikettes had a chance in the top of the sixth when Ashley Strong crushed a triple to right, but neither a ground out or Relf’s infield hit could plate Strong and the runners remained stranded.

But in the Raider sixth, three singles and a wild pitch plated two more runs to give Williamsburg a 4-2 lead they would not relinquish.

Noren took the loss, but scattered seven hits, struck out four and did not walk a batter. Henderson and Relf had two hits each in the Vikettes’ seven-hit attack. As a team, the Vikettes had 12 hits for the night, a stat that was exceptionally pleasing to Parrott.

“Going into the game, I didn’t know what to expect, with our young pitching (Noren is a sophomore and Cornell a freshman). And, I think it might have taken us a week to get 12 hits last year,” he said. “This just shows that the hard work these kids put in the off-season on their hitting and pitching was worth it.

“Maddie had a great game and got a lot of ground balls and that’s what you want,” Parrott added. “But, Lindsey pitched well too. We gave up one run on an error in the first and another on a passed ball (in the sixth) or that would have been a whole other story.”

“There are things we have to do better,” he added. “We left way too many people stranded on second or third, and we need to get those runs home.

“But we also went on the road and managed to get a split against a WaMaC team in our division,” Parrott added. “That’s huge; these guys came into our place last year and swept us, so to come out with a split tonight is big.”

The Vikettes are idle tonight, then hit the road Friday for a JV/Varsity double-dip in Winthrop against East Buchanan, a 1A Regional finalist last year. The JV game begins at 5:30 with the varsity to follow. Monday, the Vikettes will celebrate Memorial Day with their home opener against Benton Community. The holiday WaMaC twinbill will begin at 6 p.m.