By By Will Bardwell / staff writer
September 29, 2004
A late rally came up short for Northeast Lauderdale on Tuesday night as New Hope rolled to a 5-2 win at Northeast Park.
"New Hope is a great team. We've been battling them for three or four years now," said Northeast Lauderdale head coach Chris Harper. "We played pretty good defense, but we just didn't get the key hit. It's the same thing we've been battling all year."
New Hope scored one run in the first inning, two runs in the fourth and two more in the sixth, all the while holding Northeast Lauderdale's batters in check. Over the first six innings, New Hope yielded just six hits.
Northeast Lauderdale came close to breaking the shutout in the bottom of the fifth, when Kara Hull and Leanne Young led off the inning with back-to-back singles. Mallory Pace advanced the two runners on a ball hit to the right side of the infield, setting up Northeast with two runners in scoring position with only one out.
Logan Olczak hit a long fly ball to center field for the second out of the inning, but a near-perfect throw beat Hull to home plate, temporarily preserving New Hope's shutout.
Northeast Lauderdale finally broke out of its scoring drought in the bottom of the seventh. Hull stroked a one-out triple into the outfield, scoring Jenny Simpson to make the score 5-1. Lauren Zettler, who pinch ran for Hull, scored on the next at-bat on a single by Young.
"We didn't quit," Harper said. "When New Hope went up 5-0, we could've quit, but we didn't. Hopefully we'll get to see New Hope in the playoffs. New Hope is definitely the best team we'll see this year, in my opinion."
Harper took solace in his team's defense, which escaped New Hope's four-hit barrage in the first inning by giving up only one run. Northeast Lauderdale also gave up one hit or less in four separate innings.
"Little things are hurting us," Harper said. "We're looking better, though. Inexperience and youth are hurting us, but we're getting better. If we can start getting the key hits, we're going to be in a lot of ballgames."
Northeast Lauderdale is 10-14.