Tigers beat Pillager in a narrow win
Becky Walker gets low to get out of the way of a bad pitch.
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Brittany Kelley pitches in the JV game against Pillager.
The Tigers traveled to Pillager, May 14, to play their annual night game under the lights - and what a game it was!
The game didn't start until after 8 p.m. and went into all seven innings - ending after 11 p.m.
Neither team scored in the first two innings, but finally in the top of the third inning the Tigers put one run on the board, thanks in part to some key errors made by the Pillager defense and good base running by the Tigers.
In the top of the fourth the Tigers added another four runs to their score to take a 5-0 lead as they batted all the way through their order before getting out.
Once again the Tigers had good base running as they forced Pillager to throw down in an effort to stop the Tigers from stealing, which resulted in a lot of passed balls, which gave the Tigers extra bases.
Pillager finally managed to score one run in the bottom of the fourth to make the score 5-1.
In the top of the fifth the Tigers scored another three runs as their bats came alive and Pillager made some more errors, and Pillager managed to put another run on the board as well to make the score 8-2.
The Tigers didn't score in the sixth inning, but Pillager did with yet another run to make the score 8-3.
In the top of the seventh inning the Tigers scored their last run of the game to put them up with a seemingly solid 9-3 lead.
The bottom of the seventh inning is when the game became scary as the Tigers made a couple of errors and Pillager got some hits, got walked and started rounding the bases.
Pillager scored five runs in a row to cut the Tigers' lead to one run, and had runners in scoring position when the Tigers finally managed to get the last out and saved the win 9-8.
Autumn Ackerman pitched all seven innings, struck out three batters, walked 11, and gave up eight hits, and she also had one of the Tigers eight hits and four RBIs, Tatum Sheley had three hits for the Tigers, and Nikki Tulenchik had two hits including a double and two RBIs.
Tigers 12, NHK 3
The Tigers traveled up to Kelliher to play the Northome-Kelliher Mustangs on Monday, May 10. The Tigers' 12 runs came in two spurts as they scored six runs in the top of the second inning and the other six runs came in the top of the seventh. In the first inning the Tigers stranded two runners in scoring position, in the third and fourth innings the Tigers went three up, three down, and in the fifth and sixth innings the Tigers stranded a runner on first as they got out.
All three of the runs scored by the Mustangs were earned runs as the Tigers played an error-free game.
The Mustangs scored their first run in the bottom of the third, their second in the bottom of the fourth, and their third and final run came in the bottom of the sixth inning.
Emalee Arends pitched all seven innings, struck out three, walked five, and gave up nine hits, and she went 1-4 at bat and scored one run, Morgan Demars went 0-1, walked once, scored one run, and had one stolen base, Caroline Welsand went 1-3 and had one RBI, Becky Walker went 0-2, Rachel Kline went 1-2 and scored one run, Ackerman went 1-1, walked three times, scored two runs, had one RBI, and three stolen bases, Katie Wangberg went 0-3, walked once, scored one run, and had two RBIs and two stolen bases, Tulenchik went 2-4 including a triple, scored one run, and had one RBI, Sheley went 0-3, walked once, and scored two runs, Erin Kish went 2-4 including a double, scored two runs, had one RBI, and one stolen base, and Kirsti Taylor went 1-3, walked once, scored one run, had two RBIs, and one stolen base.
The Tigers are now 12-4 overall.
They were slated to face the Cass Lake-Bena Panthers and the Laporte Wildcats on Friday, May 21, in Cass Lake after both games were rescheduled due to rain.
