Wildcats Claw the Cougars, 3-1

In their second meeting of this season, the visiting Centreville Wildcats beat the Oakton Cougars 3-1 in a close game.  The loss drops the Cougars’ overall record to 5 wins, 10 losses and their conference record to 2 wins, 5 losses.

The Cougars did well to keep the game close, as Centreville hit well, played error-free defense, and pitched very well.

Centreville scored one run in their first at-bat, enabled by a walk, a stolen base, and an RBI single.  In the bottom of the first inning, the Cougars stalked a run when center fielder Linda Lyons hit a double to right field with one out.  But unfortunately, she was left stranded on second base.

After keeping Centreville from scoring in the top of the inning, the Cougars tied the game in the bottom of the second.  Third baseman, (and birthday girl), Cassie Brazinsky started things off with a one-out double to the left-center-field gap, as a cheering section of friends celebrating her birthday went wild in the stands.  Next, catcher Kelly Dunlap walked to first base.  The Centreville outfield moved in shallow when second baseman Georgia Brandt came up next, and she made them pay by hitting a fly ball over the left fielder’s head.  Although the ball was not too deep into left field, Coach McCulla waved Brazinsky home as she rounded third from second base on the hit.  In a nice piece of base running, Brazinsky beat the throw from the Wildcats’ left fielder to the plate to tie the score, and her cheering section again made lots of noise.  After a wild pitch moved Dunlap and Brandt to third and second bases, Centreville’s pitcher struck out the next two Cougars and left Dunlap and Brandt stranded.

Centreville loaded the bases in the top of the third inning using a single and two walks, but the Cougars stranded them there at inning’s end.  Brandt made all three outs this inning, fielding two grounders to make outs and catching a pop up.  The Cougars did not threaten in the bottom of the inning, going down one, two, three and leaving the score tied at 1 – 1 after three innings.

The Wildcats scored two runs on four hits and a walk in the top of the fourth inning, which, combined with their error-free defense and strong pitching, was enough to eventually win the game. 

The Cougars never really threatened in innings four through seven, as the Centreville pitchers struck out seven of the fourteen Cougar batters, and the remaining Cougar hits were scattered across different innings.  Brazinsky hit a single in the fourth inning.  Lyons hit a double in the fifth inning.  And Brogan hit a double in the sixth inning, although she was put out by a beautiful throw from the Wildcats’ center fielder to third base as she tried to stretch it into a triple.

The Cougars had a middling effort on defense.  They committed three errors, but none of them cost any runs.  Rachel Lee made a great running catch in right field on a fly ball that was slicing toward the line and would have resulted in a double or triple if it got by her.  Left fielder Nicole Berube made an awesome diving catch on a dying fly ball, and then held on as she hit the ground with the ball halfway out of her glove like a florescent-yellow snow cone.

Natalie Felix pitched the entire game for the Cougars, striking out three, walking four, and allowing three earned runs.