By DAVE BELCHER
Moapa Valley Progress
The Moapa Valley High School softball team heads into its final regular-season week in second place. But in order to keep a home game in the playoffs, the Pirates will need two wins this week to keep the second seed. The first against Vo-Tech and the other against Boulder City. Moapa Valley and Sunrise Mountain are tied for second as the Pirates hold the tie breaker.
The Pirates, however, have the tougher schedule to end the season. The Miners play Virgin Valley in Vegas this week. The Dawgs are 4-8 in league play. Then the Miners are at Desert Pines who has yet to win a game this year with a 0-12 league record. Moapa Valley beat Tech earlier this year 13-8 then lost to Boulder City, the top seed team at 12-0 6-1. In that game the game was tied 1-1 until the fifth inning when the Eagles scored 5 runs and held on for the win in Moapa Valley.
Last week the Pirates came away with two wins as they dominated the Dragons of Del Sol 22-11 then beat Chaparral 6-4.
In the first game, held Monday, Del Sol couldn’t stop the Pirates as they used their speed to circle the bases at will. DaniElle Russo had a double in the game pounding in 4 RBI’s as she was 4-5 from the plate. Kinlee Marshall was 4-6 and Devony Cooper hit a double while driving in 4 Pirate runs. All told, the Pirates had 21 hits in the game and capitalized on 8 Del Sol errors.
Moapa Valley scored 5 runs in both the first and second innings followed by 3 in the third. Del Sol got 2 runs in the second and third innings after the Pirates were up 10-0. Both teams scored 4 runs in the fourth followed by 5 for the Pirates in the sixth and three for the Dragons in the bottom half of the sixth with the game ending due to the ten run mercy rule.
The second game of the week against Chaparral on Thursday was close all the way to the end. The Pirates were looking to avenge their loss to the Cowboys three weeks ago, 8-2. They turned the tables and scored 2 runs in the fourth and 3 more in the fifth to build a 5-2 lead.
Chaparral scored 1 run in the third inning and each of the fifth, sixth and seventh innings.
The game ended 6-4 as Moapa Valley used 8 hits to do the damage. Chaparral who uses the bunting and their speed to move around the bases and score runs couldn’t do that this time. Kessa Evans used her arm speed to throw the ball past the Cowboys allowing just two hits in the game. Evans had 7 strike outs and walked 4 Cowboys in the game.
The thing that hurt Moapa Valley was errors.
“The errors weren’t glaring, said head coach Matt Messer. “It did keep them in the game though.”
Moapa Valley also used their speed as they were able score enough for the win.
“It was a good game,” Messer added. “We are pretty fast, I’m liking our speed.”
