The CA Lady Cougars opened the district portion of their schedule Monday with a solid 6-1 victory over Oak Forest Academy, capturing the lead early in the contest and delivering a strong defensive performance to maintain the advantage and earn more positive momentum entering the third week of the season.
All six of the Lady Cougars runs were scored in the top of the first, with an offensive on pour powered by three straight singles to start the contest. Head coach Kyle Wilks said his players' early success at the plate has been one of his team's strong points in a 7-5 run through their first 12 games.
"The main thing for us right now is that we're starting to swing the bat really well, which is great to see at the start of your district schedule," Wilks said. "We've played a lot of really good teams and good pitching early, so our girls have been tested at the plate, and I think we're starting to see the benefits of that."
Defensively, the Lady Cougars received a huge boost from the stellar performance of sophomore Macey Branch, who earned the right to wear the team's 'G.O.A.T. chain' by pitching five innings with only two hits allowed. Branch also went 2-for-4 from the plate with a single and a double.
Branch is one of several team members who have been asked to step into larger roles following the loss of senior Abby Pevey, who will miss significant time this season due to a fractured and dislocated finger. So far, Wilks said his younger players have gone above and beyond to make up for Pevey's production, both in the batter's box and the pitching circle.
"I think (Macey) played extremely well. She did a really good job of keeping hitters off balance," Wilks said. "There toward the end, I knew she was getting a little tired, so we brought Taylor Berard in for the last two innings, and Taylor gave up two early hits but did a nice job of settling down and closing out the game for us.
"We kind of had to regroup a little bit whenever Abby got hurt, but the one thing I believe we do have to help with that is pitching depth. Even though they're young, I've got several good pitchers who are ready to go when we need them. Last night was Macey's turn, and she came through in a pretty big way."
This weekend, the Lady Cougars will travel to Southwest Community College, where they'll host the CA Round Robin Tournament. They'll jump back into district play Monday with a home game against Silliman Institute. Wilks said he and his players are working on sustaining their success at the plate for a full seven innings as they make their way into the meat and potatoes of the district portion of their schedule.
"We've been getting some pretty timely hits here lately, but you know, I would've loved to have kept adding runs to that lead over the course of the ball game," he said. "We're getting opportunities, and we just need to work on taking advantage of those because you just never know when those extra one or two runs could make all the difference in winning or losing the game.
“But it's all coming along for us, and I like where we're at going forward."
