LAUREL HILL — There is still plenty of time for Laurel Hill School’s softball team to get better. The district tournament is still six weeks away.
Hobo Coach Scott Varnum knows his young team has work to do, but he said the players aren’t afraid of work.
Laurel Hill hosted Central in a District 1-1A game Monday and the Jaguars showed their experience in taking a 10-0 win.
Laurel Hill-Central softball photos>>>
“We have to play our best ball to compete with a team like Central,” Varnum said. “I thought my girls played hard. But they did not make plays.
“You can’t have errors and unearned runs against a team like that. We’ve got a lot of inexperience but we’ve got to make those plays. We have to stay behind the pitcher and make the routine plays.”
The game was scoreless through the first two innings, but the youth and inexperience of the Hoboes (1-4, 1-3) first showed in the third inning when a pair of errors on routine fly balls turned into a the first two Jaguar runs of the game.
Central scored two more unearned runs in the fifth inning as the Hobo miscues continued to mount. The Jaguars pounded Laurel Hill pitch Maddie Varnum for four hits and scored for more runs in the sixth. Central finished the scoring with two runs in the seventh.
Varnum had her moments in the circle. She struck out six Jaguar batters only allowed one walk and one hit batter while giving up nine hits.
The Hobo offense struggled throughout the game against Jaguar pitcher Lacee Stewart.
Stewart held Laurel Hill to three hits, but two of them were triples.
Becca Welch led off the Laurel Hill third with a triple to right. Ashley Hatfield had a one-out single in the fourth and Morgan Meeks delivered a triple in the sixth.
Welch, Hatfield and Meeks were the only Hoboes to reach base.
“It doesn’t matter how many errors we make,” Scott Varnum said. “If we put a goose egg on the board and don’t score any runs and leave runners stranded (on base) we are not going to beat a good team like that.”
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This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Central softball team has no problem with Laurel Hill (PHOTOS, VIDEO)