NEW MARKET — North Montgomery pitching struggled to find the zone and Southmont ace Macie Shirk got better as the game went along on Saturday in a 19-1 Mountie win.
The victory gives Southmont (11-6, 4-4 SAC) the outright county title.
“It’s an important thing for our girls,” Southmont coach Dan Taylor said. “You obviously don’t want to lose to other teams in the county. They know these girls and you saw a lot of talk back and forth. They’re friends and they play together and against each other.”
The Mounties scored six runs in the first inning on no hits to take a 6-1 lead and never looked back. North Montgomery pitchers allowed 10 hits in the game, but walked or hit 14 batters.
North Montgomery (0-16-1, 0-10 SAC) did strike first with three hits in the top half of the first.
Mallory Morehouse led the game off with a double and later scored on a hit from Makinze Rominger.
Shirk settled in though after the dusted settled and the Mountie offense gave her the lead. The junior allowed just two hits the rest of the way, walked none and struck-out 10.
“She did (get better as the game went along) and she tweaked her back last night so we weren’t really sure how it was going to go for her. She really looked better as the game went along she got more loose and she has pitched a lot of tough games for us.”
Hanna Nichols, Abbey Gass, Dara Watson, and Natalie Manion each had two hits to lead the Mounties. Manion drove in three runs.
Southmont plays a home and away this week against Lebanon, while North Montgomery plays Crawfordsville in Sagamore Conference action.
