Big bats back pitching in Lady Blues’ rout of Mineral Wells

For the seventh time this season, the Graham Lady Blues won a game by the “run-rule” after they defeated the Mineral Wells Lady Rams 12-0 in a district matchup.

With the game against Mineral Wells, the Lady Blues (18-7 overall, 3-1 in district) have now faced all their district opponents one time and currently sit in first place. Two of the three district wins were by 10-plus runs and in all three of the victories the team hasn’t allowed a single run to the other team.

The only runs that Graham has given up in a district contest were in a 5-4 loss to Stephenville. The Lady Blues have been led all season by their pitching and that has continued with the start of district play. Meanwhile, the bats have somewhat ebbed and flowed all season, but lately have been doing a ton of damage.

Against the Lady Rams, Graham scored 12 runs on 14 hits while committing no errors on defense as pitchers Reese Calhoun and Zoey Harrell combined to hold Mineral Wells scoreless Tuesday, April 2.

“It was an all around good night in all three phases of the game,” head coach Adam Arrington said.

Often this season, when the Lady Blues have scored a lot of runs, they have come in bunches. In a five-inning game, as the home team, Graham only went up to bat in four innings and scored multiple runs in three of those four.

In their half of the first inning, the Lady Blues wasted no time getting the offense going. Calhoun had cruised through the first three Mineral Wells hitters, in which she struck out two of them and then Graham got things started.

Olga Morales singled and advanced to second on an error by the outfielder, Calhoun singled to put runners on first and third and Morales scored by stealing home on a passed ball to put the team up 1-0 early.

After a walk, another single, a productive ground out and a big double to left field by Zoey Harrell, the Lady Blues had put up three more runs to lead 4-0 after just the first inning.

Graham managed two more runs in the third inning to extend their lead to 6-0 before they broke the game wide open with a six-run fourth inning. The Lady Blues sent 11 batters to the plate in the inning, recorded nine hits and doubled their lead to 12-0.

Every hit in the inning was a single as the Lady Blues marched around the bases and brought in their runs. Nearly every player who got in the game had a hit with Harrell, Morales, Calhoun and Emily Lawson each recording multiple hits.

After four innings of dominant pitching by Calhoun — in which she gave up one hit, one walk and struck out nine Lady Rams — Harrell came in to close out the game by striking out two hitters, including getting the final batter looking.

“(The pitchers) threw a lot of strikes today…but we talked yesterday that no matter the pitching, we’ve got to come out and hit the ball hard,” Arrington said. “I thought we were disciplined at the plate, we laid off the low stuff and when they gave us one to hit we hit the ball hard.”

Harrell finished the game a perfect 3-for-3 with two runs scored and an RBI, Morales went 3-for-4, Lawson ended 2-for-3 with a run scored and two RBIs and Paris Tate finished 1-for-2 with two runs scored, two RBIs and a walk.

After having an open weekend, the Lady Blues will stay home for the start of the second half of district play with a matchup against Stephenville at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 9.