Throwing errors doom Fillies

CARBONDALE — Iola High’s softball team threw a win away in the second game of a doubleheader against Santa Fe Trail on Tuesday.
“We gave up so many bases. That to me, is really instinct that they’re missing,” coach Melissa Stiffler said. “You don’t try to bring the ball home when the girl is hitting homeplate [safely]. That’s frustrating to me, stuff that they should know. And no one is talking to each other on the field.”
After losing game one 13-3, the Fillies offense gave the defense a large cushion. Iola supplied themselves a 6-0 lead after the first inning.
With one out, Sydney Wade hit a single. Katie Shields reached on a fielder’s choice. Jadyn Sigg followed with an RBI-single. Shelby Reno then hit an RBI-single. Riley Murry kept the inning going with a walk. Taylor Heslop reached on a fielder’s choice. Emily McKarnin walked. Ashlie Shields reached on an error and Wade reached again, this time on a fielder’s choice. After all of that, Iola got six players to touch homeplate.
In the bottom half of the frame, the Chargers answered with five runs. Overall, there were two errors in the inning.
With a 6-5 lead, Iola added another run in the second inning. After the first two batters picked up an out, Murry walked for the second time of the game. Heslop hit her in on an RBI-double.
Iola held a 7-5 lead until the third inning. Santa Fe Trail scored three runs in the inning, Iola had just as many errors. In the fourth inning, the Chargers added two more runs for a 10-7 lead. Iola had two errors.
Iola’s offense did come back in the fifth inning. Murry led the inning off with a single. Heslop followed with a single. After an out, McKarnin sacrificed them over. Ashlie Shields followed with an RBI-single scoring both. Wade then reached on a walk and came into score on wild pitches. Iola was up 11-10.
In the fifth and sixth innings, Santa Fe Trail scored seven runs to take a 17-11 lead — which would be the final score. Overall, the Fillies had eight errors in the game. That doesn’t count the ill-timed throws they had. Multiple times, the ball was thrown toward a base, when it was clear the Santa Fe Trail runner would get there safely.
In the first game, Iola trailed 13-0 heading into the fifth inning. They needed to score four runs to keep the game going, but scored three.
Reno led the inning off with a single. Taylor Sell then reached on an error — she was later out on a fielder’s choice. Micaiah Larney followed with a single. After another out, Wade hit an RBI-single. Chloe Gardner then walked. Reno, Larney and Wade scored in the inning.
Of note, Ashlie Shields left game two in the sixth inning. Playing catcher, she tried to catch a flyball behind the plate. It hit off the edge of her glove and in the face. She went to the hospital with blurred vision.
“She’s a leader on the team, too, and once she was out, the rest of the girls didn’t know what to do,” Stiffler said.
Iola (4-12) heads to Anderson County next Tuesday for a Class 4A Regional. Two wins, and the team can still get to state.
“That’s where we can’t tank now,” Stiffler said. “We were in the last [game] until the last inning tonight. We kind of just gave up.”