Left to Right are home run hitters Averie Ayers, Kailey Hancock, Tasha Pierce, and Pearl Perry.
By: Justin Hargrove, Assistant Athletic Director
Northeast Texas Community College Softball hit the road to Cisco, Texas this weekend to take on Pratt Junior College (Pratt, Kansas) and Cisco College on Saturday. NTCC would defeat Pratt 12-1 in game one and knocked off home team Cisco 14-3 to complete the two-game road trip with wins.
In game one action against Pratt, NTCC would score at least one run every inning to win game one. The Eagles got things going in the first when Kadi Downs (Foreman, AR HS) reached via a hit by pitch to lead things off and Haylee Wilson (Hughes Springs HS) reached via walk with one out, Tasha Pierce (Hudson HS) would homer to give NTCC a 3-0 lead. In the second inning Downs reached base on a two out single and then scored when Emma Farquhar doubled to left/center field to increase the lead to 4-0. Pierce’s hot bat continued in her second at bat when she led off the third inning with a homerun to push the lead to 5-0. Just two batters later, Averie Ayers (Mount Pleasant HS) would go deep as well with a solo shot to take it to 6-0.
NTCC would add two runs in the fourth to increase the lead to 8-1 and the final four runs in the fifth inning to win 12-1. Pearl Perry (Hughes Springs HS) would join Pierce and Ayers with a homerun in the fifth inning as well.
In addition to hitting well, Ayers was in the circle for NTCC keeping Pratt off balance and allowed just one run on two hits and three strikeouts over five innings of work.
In game two, the Eagle offense exploded in the first inning, scoring five runs to set the tone early. The NTCC hitters were seeing the ball well off the Cisco pitcher, opening the game with three straight singles and that was followed by two straight doubles to get the Eagles on the board early and often in game two. After being held scoreless in the second, NTCC would score six runs in the third inning to increase the lead to 11-1 over Cisco College.
Kailey Hancock (Central High School) led off the fourth inning with her first collegiate homerun to help add three more runs to extend the lead to 14-2.
Emily Cole (Paul Pewitt HS) would get the ball for game two of the day and kept Cisco to just three runs on one hit and five strikeouts. Cole was able to over come some walks with timely ground out and pop ups by keeping the batters off balance with a variety of pitches.
NTCC will be on the road to Eastern Oklahoma State College on Thursday, March 4 before returning home on Saturday, March 6 for the rubber match in a double header against Eastern Oklahoma State at 1:00pm.
Keep track of NTCC softball and up to date schedules by logging on the NTCC Athletics website at www.ntcceagles.com.
