Anne Toerber and Paige Miller with their home run balls
(Photo via Anna Maesha)
The Valley Heights girls scored early and often in Thursday's sweep of Republic County with some crafty base running and patience at the plate as they defeated the Buffaloes 10-7 in Game 1 and taking a Game 2 victory 5-3.
In the early game, Valley Heights was able to grab 3 early runs, two of those via a passed ball scoring Anne Toerber and Tessa Bigham. That wasn't the only impact Toerber would make in this game as two innings later, the Junior would hit a 2-run home run also scoring Maggie Toerber and putting Valley Heights up 5-0.
Republic County would make a charge in the top of the 4th capitalizing on 2 Valley Heights errors to make it 5-3. Avery Stevenson would add another on a steal of home to make the lead 3.
Republic County was able to get to Paige Miller in the 6th and briefly take the lead at 7-6. Miller went the full 7 innings for Valley Heights striking out 6 with 4 earned runs on 117 pitches.
Down a run in the bottom of the 6th, time was running out for the Lady Mustangs but they were determined to rally and that's exactly what they did. Walks from Anne Toerber and Delana as well as singles by Lindsey Gray and Tessa Bigham tied the game at 7. Toerber would steal home to give the Mustangs the edge while Brooke Porter and Audra Steinfort added insurance runs with RBI singles.
Finally, down to their final outs, Miller would get back-to-back groundouts and then a strike out to end the game and give Valley Heights a game 1 win.
In Game 2, it wasn't until late where this game got dicey. Down 2-1 in the bottom of the 5th, Valley Heights needed to get the bats going again like they had earlier in the day. After a pair of walks, one to Audra Steinfort, the other to Avery Stevenson. Lindsey Gray would follow that up with a bases clearing triple to give Valley Heights the lead and Paige Miller helped her own cause with a 2 run homer and that was all Valley Heights needed to take the sweep of the Buffaloes.
Valley Heights, at 4-2 on the season will see their next action next Monday the 8th against Blue Valley.
