STAYING WITH IT

During every at-bat, the Key West High softball team put at least one runner on base collecting six hits across the first six innings, still entering the bottom of visiting Vero Beach held a two-run advantage as they stepped to the plate for their final swings in regulation play. Scarlet Niles and Alexandra Rodriguez opened the frame with singles, Niles scoring her team’s first run on a wild pitch, with Vera Roder knocking in the game-tying run on a sacrifice fly to send the contest into extra innings.

Key West once again put runners on base in the eighth, leaving one in scoring position, but in the ninth, Rodriguez and Rodger singled to open the frame bringing Alexis Condella to a plate with one out and this time the Lady Conchs came up with the clutch hit for a 3-2 victory at the Key West High Back Yard on Saturday, March 23.

The win was made possible by the Key West pitching staff as Nevaeh Arnold surrendered two unearned runs in the third on a walk, a Lady Conchs’ error and sacrifice fly, lasting four innings total while conceding four hits and three walks with four strikeouts. Brianna Brenner followed for the next five scoreless innings, into extras, giving up just a hit and walk with eight strikeouts.

Despite Arnold and Brenner combining not to surrender an earned run, Key West stranded at least one runner in every frame, Rodriguez in the first following a base hit, Tavyn Gage in the second after a double with another runner on first following a walk, Rodriguez again in the third at third base after she singled, Shylo Sanchez singled in the fourth but was left at second, in the fifth Monica Bueno singled, Niles double and bases were left loaded, and in the sixth had a runner reach via a hit by a pitch, but she too was left on bases.

In the first extra inning, Key West opened with a Gage single, but she would be stranded at second, setting up the dramatic walk-off single by Condella in the ninth.

The game was initially part of a doubleheader against Vero Beach, but rainstorms in the morning pushed it back to a single contest that started at 4:30 p.m. The Back Yard is set to host a double-header on Saturday, April 6, when Key West is back in action hosting the Academy of Innovative Arts at 2 and 5 p.m.