Saints March Past Green Dragons

LAKE PLACID - Marilyn Jones just shook her head, smiled and wondered aloud when she'd see her team play a complete game this season.

"They hit the ball for one inning and then take the rest of the game off," said the LP head coach, who watched her Green Dragons fall 13-3 to All-Saints Academy in a six-inning mercy-rule game on Friday.

Lake Placid has struggled all season with consistency at the plate and in the field, but they've managed to show glimpses of the potential that their coach knows they have.

"We've got some talent out there," Jones said. "We just have a hard time pulling all that talent together, and we always seem to hang our heads once we dig ourselves into a hole."

That hole came in the first inning, when a pair of errors in the infield turned into four runs, including a three-run bomb over the left-field fence by Ashton Brice that gave the Saints a 4-0 lead just moments into the game.

Shortstop Megan Spurlock saw the change in her team's demeanor from that moment on.

"This team has to learn how to bounce back," Spurlock said. "I mean, All-Saints is a good team, but we can't just put them on a pedestal of a great team just by one home run.

"We could have beaten them tonight, but we have to start to play the whole game from the first pitch on."

Saints pitcher Lyndsey McClellan used her high fastball to keep the Green Dragons guessing and scattered four hits over five innings.

Lake Placid's runs came in the fifth when Maribel Garza reached first on an error and scored Stacy Davis from second, while Christina Davis blooped a two-run single into right field, but was thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double.

The three runs made it an 8-3 ballgame and constituted the most runs scored by Lake Placid in a game this season.

The Saints plated five runs in the top of the sixth, as they batted around the order and totaled six hits in a row to push the game to 10-run-rule territory.

Spurlock tried to spark a rally to save the Green Dragons by hitting a triple into center, but McClellan notched a strike out and forced a shallow pop-up to end the game.

Maribel Garza struggled to hit her spots and Jones feels her hurler needs to build some confidence.

"Maribel gives everything she has every night," Jones said. "She just got down when she gave up the home run. she needs to learn how to shake those off and keep going."

The Green Dragons have some time off to regroup before getting back on the field on Thursday when they host cross-county rival Avon Park at 7:30 p.m.

CANCELLED: The Sebring softball team's game with DeSoto was cancelled on Friday night due to a lack of players on the Bulldog side. The Streaks are back in action on Monday, when they travel to Sarasota to face Booker. First pitch is set for 6:30 p.m.