The CF softball team won both of their games Wednesday afternoon against Crowder College improving their record to an impressive 43-1. The Patriots cruised to an easy victory during game one winning 14-1 but found themselves in a fight during the second game. The Patriots were able to pull through in the late innings and win game two 9-7.
“We did good in game 1 but struggled a bit in game 2,” said Coach Kevin Fagan. “We made 4 errors, the pitchers were not hitting their spots as well. Our two pitchers have not gotten a lot of innings but our ace JoJo was down so we pitched our number two in game one and our three and four in game two. They did okay, but defensively we could have done a little bit better but we hit it pretty good like we usually do.”
The Patriots’ bats were leading the charge in both games totaling 16 hits in only four innings during game one and 15 hits through seven innings in game two. Brooke Barlow led the charge in both games, going 2-2 with 3 RBIs in game one and 4-4 with 3 RBIs and a home run during game two.
“We are hitting really good right now our pitching has been really strong on the mound,” said Barlow. “We have been doing pretty good, really solid, we just have to keep it up and finish out conference strong. It definitely felt good, I have been seeing the ball well right now. Coach has been helping me have the same mentality going into every at bat. Right now I am doing good and everyone in front of me is doing a great job of getting on base so I am able to get those RBIs.”
Mariah Wise was another Patriot who had a great day at the plate during both games totaling 5 hits, 4 runs, and 2 RBIs. Wise was able to find a way onto base almost every at-bat adding a walk to her stat line.
Despite winning both of their games today the Patriots seem to struggle during game two having cruise controlling through game one. CF was only able to total 9 runs through seven innings compared to the 14 runs they scored in only four innings of work during game one.
“I think we could have done way better in the second game,” said Wise. “We should have just kept the same mentality. But I think we could have come out a little harder the second game but overall I think we did pretty good today. I think a lot of our balls just were not falling through in the second game, I think we did really good hitting but we did not score runs when we needed to.”
CF allowed Crowder College to score 6 more runs in the second game mainly due to pitchers not hitting their spots and misplays out in the field. “We made some errors in game two that we did not make in game one,” said Fagan. “Pitchers were not hitting their spots; they were more productive at the plate because we were not hitting our spots. It kept them in the game, we hit the ball pretty good, but we hit a lot of line drives right to people so we did not score as many runs as we did in game one but when you score nines run you should win every game you play.”
The Patriots will look to continue their 23 game win streak against Lake-Sumter State College on Thursday afternoon.
Story by: Brandon Wilson
The Patriot Press 
Who wrote this?
Oops, thank you for noticing! This story was by Brandon Wilson, I’ll add his name to the article now. -Mark A.