The Chillicothe Lady Hornets softball team was facing their toughest conference test of year on Thursday night when they traveled to St. Joe to take on the Benton Cardinals. Chillicothe entered the game 12-2 with a 3-0 MEC record while Benton was 10-4 and 3-1 in conference.
The highly anticipated matchup lived up to the billing early as both pitchers were dealing. After two innings Landry Marsh had recorded 4 strikeouts for Chillicothe and allowed just one hit, while Shana Noland had struck out 3 Lady Hornets on just one hit to that point. Then in the 3rd, Maicee Albrecht drilled a deep shot into left center field against the back fence for a double. A couple batters later Abby Marshall batted Albrecht home for the first run of the game.
In the 4th inning, Benton managed 2 runs on 2 hits to take the lead and the score remained in the favor of the Cardinals until the 6th inning when a Landry Marsh single followed by a hit from Ellie Acree scored the Lady Hornets pitcher to tie the game up at 2-2.
The defenses and pitchers prevented either side from scoring again until the game was deep into extra innings. To lead off the 10th, Marsh connected on her fourth hit of the game. After advancing to 2nd base, Tori Stoner stepped up and hit a hard ground ball passed the infield allowing Marsh to run all the way home to give Chillicothe a 3-2 lead. With a one run advantage, Marsh stepped back into the circle and struck out two more Cardinals in the final frame to preserve the 3-2 conference win.
Marsh finished with 14 strikeouts in the game while allowing just 6 hits, and offensively the Lady Hornets finished with 11 hits. Chillicothe is now 13-2 overall and 4-0 in the MEC. Coach Rucker and the Lady Hornets will have another challenging conference clash in their next game at Savannah on Monday.
