Every county matchup is memorable. Tuesday was even more so.
Behind the no-hitter of Ella Barry, it was a big night for the 13th-ranked Southmont Mounties’ softball team in a 10-0, six inning win over Crawfordsville in County and Monon Conference action. The sophomore hurled her second no-hitter of the season (the other was against North Montgomery) and struck out 15 Athenian batters.
Crawfordsville managed two runners in the game — a second inning walk and a runner reached an error to start the sixth inning before Barry struck out the next three hitters to end the game. In addition to the no-no from Barry, the win is the 100th for coach Dan Taylor at South. With the victory, he also surpasses Curt Brown for the most softball coaching wins in school history.
“Ella pitched another great game for us,” Taylor said. “We started slowly but finally got things turned around and started playing Mountie softball. It was a great win for us. Crawfordsville has given us trouble in the recent past, so we were happy with the win.”
After plating a run in the top of the first on a Kenzie Clate RBI single, Crawfordsville pitcher Molly Pierce kept Southmont off the board in the second. The Mounties got RBI singles from Kendall Priebe and freshman Emily Simpson. Then the Mounties added a run in the fourth inning when Kaylee Turner tripled to lead off the inning and Barry doubled her home.
The big inning was in the sixth when the Mounties scored six runs, four on Barry’s grand slam, her sixth home run of the season.
On the mound Barry was dominating as she needed just 63 pitches to earn the victory. She struck out the side in the first, second, fifth and sixth. Her fifth inning was an “immaculate inning” where she struck out the side on nine pitches. It was her seventh win, fourth straight and her fifth shutout of the season. She has not allowed a run in 23 consecutive innings. Overall, the Mounties had 13 hits, led by Priebe’s three. Barry, Clate, Kenzie Douglas and Simpson all added two hits. The bottom four in the Mounties’ lineup accounted for eight of the 13 hits.
“We came into the game with the mindset of controlling what we could control,” C’ville coach Mackenzi Landrum said. “They are going to hit the ball, and put it in play, but if we can make the outs that they give us, then we are doing all we can do. They hit some balls that we couldn’t make plays on, but I thought we did a good job on the plays that we could. We are focusing on doing those little things, the things we can control and get better every day.”
The win pushed the Mounties to 9-2 and 5-2 in the Monon Athletic Conference and Crawfordsville fell to 2-12 and 0-7. The two teams played again Wednesday.
