| Carbon catcher Whitney Williams goes up to field a throw in as a Union player slides into home. |
Coming home to play after being on the road for most of the pre-season, the Carbon softball team was looking for a win. They put up a good fight, but in the end, lost to a good hitting Union team by the score of 10-12.
Carbon took the early lead with a first inning run. But Union took advantage of a few fielding mistakes and came right back with six in the second. In the third, the Dinos loaded the bases and put up a run before Paige Pinedo tied the game with a single swing of the bat. She belted a grand slam over the fence.
But in the fifth, the Carbon defense ran into trouble again and Uintah stormed back into the lead by six. Instead of rolling over, the Dinos again crawled back into the game on the hitting of players like Erika Potts and Sarah Norton. Norton put one over the fence in the sixth to pull the game within two. Potts had three hits in the game.
The comeback fell short and the Dinos lost the game, but left Coach Pinedo feeling like he saw many positive aspects in the play of his team. “You are never really happy after a loss, but despite the mental mistakes and a few questionable calls, they played some solid ball and never quit. They came back from the 6-1 hole and then almost came back from being behind 12-6.
Whitney Oliver, in her first game back from her knee injury made a good play to throw out a Cougar trying to stretch a single into a double from center field. Whitney Williams again shot a bullet from behind the plate to gun down a runner as she took a lead off of third. The Union player told her coach as she walked off the field, “I never saw that coming.” Williams has picked off a runner from third in almost every game so far this season.
Coach Pinedo also had good things to say about his short stop, Kelsey Gillespie and her good play in the field.
The team has one more game to sharpen their skills before region action starts. They will play in Park City this Saturday before heading to North Sanpete on Tuesday for a double header. They will stay on the road until April 10 when they play Juan Diego in a double header starting at 2 p.m.