When Montezuma-Cortez High School and Delta squared off in a doubleheader last season at the Cortez Softball Complex, the two 4A Lady Panther teams split.
Each squad traded leads and costly errors spelled doom. On a balmy Friday afternoon at the Cortez Softball Complex, it was deja vu. Delta took Game 1, 4-3 in eight innings, and M-CHS bounced back for a 12-8 Game 2 victory.
Game 1 didn’t feature any lead changes, but the pitchers dueled.
Junior starter Sadee Threlkeld debuted on the mound against sophomore April Easter of Delta.
Threlkeld gave up two quick runs in the first inning. Easter didn’t budge with four strikeouts in the first two innings.
Finally in the bottom of the third, M-CHS third baseman Tanya Wilkin led off with a single. Catcher Randy Elliot reached first after a fielding error at center field by Jessica Gomez allowing Wilkin to score. Elliot came home to tie it 2-2 from second baseman Tori Laymon’s sacrifice-fly.
The road Lady Panthers regained the lead in the fourth when Elliot’s throw to third sailed past Wilkin, which gave Katie Johnson a path to the plate.
M-CHS countered in the fifth when Threlkeld belted an RBI-triple to right-center. But she was left stranded in the fifth and the score was 3-3.
The game went extra innings and Delta got the winning run in the eighth off an RBI-ground out by Easter, who got the win throwing eight K’s.
Threlkeld took the loss, but hit 2-for-4 with an RBI and forced two double plays on defense while recording two strike outs.
Game 2 was a back-and-forth battle royal the first three innings.
Delta quickly got three runs in the top of the first and the home team answered with six runs in two innings to lead 6-3.
However, the visiting Lady Panthers got three hits for four runs in the top of the third to run back ahead, 7-6. Wilkin’s RBI-single in the bottom half tied it at 7.
M-CHS buckled down on defense after the third and switch pulled eventually away. Threlkeld scored the go-ahead run in the bottom of the fourth off Laymon’s RBI-ground out and the home Lady Panthers never trailed again. They made sure of that in the next inning, with Threlkeld’s RBI-single that sent two home. Two more scored when Laymon was safe at first after an errant throw from Delta shortstop Johnson. M-CHS led 12-7.
Delta added a run in the eighth for the final margin.
“It’s what we kind of expected to see from Delta,” M-CHS coach Heath Elliot said about the doubleheader. “We came back the second game with a good, solid win. I’ve seen a lot of good things, but we’ve seen some things that we need to go back and work hard on. Sadee did a great job for us today. She was good keeping it in the zone. I don’t think we had any wild pitches today.”
Threlkeld did it all. She got the win on the mound, and hit 3-for-3 with a walk and three RBIs.
“We played really good the first game. I think we could have had it, but we lost it at the very end,” she said. “The second game, we just decided we weren’t going to lose that game. We just had to pull through.”
As for pitching her first games, Threlkeld has had a lot of help from starting catcher Randy Elliot. The two have worked good together for quite some time.
“I love Randy behind the plate. She’s my favorite catcher,” Threlkeld said. “We’ve always pitched together for years. We’ve always been used to each other. It’s just different if we’re not together. We’re like a team.”
M-CHS will be in Palisade on Friday and Saturday at the annual Peach Fuzz tournament. The Lady Panthers went 3-1 in the tourney last year and are hungry for the championship this time.
“I think they’re really excited to get up there and show what they got,” Heath Elliot said. “We had a disappointing loss last year, and came back and won the rest of the games we had. They want to go back and show that was just a fluke, that they can win every game.”
Reach Bobby Abplanalp at bobbya@cortezjournal.com.