LAKEVILLE — A beautiful night for a home opener had a beautiful start for LaVille’s Lady Lancers but #11 (3A) ranked New Prairie was overwhelming late and game away with a 19-1 win at LaVille.
The Lady Cougars Abby Robakowski gave a hint of the night she was about to have hitting the third pitch from LaVille starter Quincy Blodgett onto the road in left field.
That didn’t seem to deter Blodgett all that much as she recovered to get the next two hitters and after an error got her team into the dugout.
“I give our kids credit. They were ready to play, we battled, I give our kids a lot of credit for that,” said LaVille coach Scot Shearer who watched his team do more than battle in their half of the inning.
Sydney Coblentz led off the Lancer first with a single and scored when catcher Allison Medors stroked an RBI double.
It would remain tied at one until things came undone for LaVille in the third.
New Prairie amped up the “small ball” with four straight hits to lead off the inning all but one a perfectly placed bunt. The Cougars would end up scoring 14 runs on 12 hits, but only two of those hits left the infield.
Unfortunately one was a second homer by Robakowski, this one a two-run shot.
In the fourth Malkayla Collins belted a three-run shot that would cap the scoring for New Prairie.
“They were very effective at their short game tonight,” said Shearer. “I give them kudos for making us handle the ball. Those are things that we want to try to do, make people handle the ball, make them pick it up, and make a play on it. That’s what they forced us to do tonight.
“They mixed that with some power a couple of home runs some nice five and six hole hits,” said Shearer. “They had a nice complement going on tonight.”
Except for a couple of untimely errors and a couple of slow decisions, the Lancers just couldn’t catch a break in the third.
“In that big inning that was pretty much it,” said Shearer. “When you are trying to get that one out and you can’t get it everything kind of snowballs.”
Adriana Bibian came on for New Prairie in relief of starter Haley Dawson to shut down any momentum LaVille could muster striking out five in three innings work.
Robakowski ended the night 3-4 with four RBIs for New Prairie, Allison Pavlik had three hits including a double and five RBIs.
LaVille was paced by Allison Medors RBI double, Coblenz had a hit and a run scored and Ava Barger was able to slap a single late in the game.
The Lady Lancers are out of the box at 0-2 and take on South Bend Clay at home on Thursday night.
•NEW PRAIRIE 19, LaVILLE 1
at LaVille
N. Prairie 1 0 14 4 0 19-19-0
LaVille 1 0 0 0 1-3-3
WP — Bibian. LP — Blodgett. HR — Robakowski (NP) 2, Collins (NP). 2B — Pavlick (NP), Medors (LV).
