Marriotts Ridge softball avenges early season loss to Mt. Hebron with 5-4 win

Marriotts Ridge softball didn’t fare well last year rematching teams they previously lost to.

The Mustangs felt they entered those second meetings discouraged by the prior result, which negatively impacted their performances. Entering this year, Marriotts Ridge vowed to flush away early season losses.

Thursday afternoon hosting Mt. Hebron, the Mustangs showed that maturation. After losing to the Vikings by four in the opening week of the season, Marriotts Ridge responded with a 5-4 win.

“I think it was really good for our team to understand that we can come back and win after we’ve lost to a team previously,” sophomore Sienna Williams said. “We didn’t do that last season.”

Coming off a loss at No. 8 Glenelg, Mustangs coach Renard Parson reinforced the importance of a short memory. On Wednesday, the Mustangs allowed one mistake to snowball as the Gladiators broke the game open.

However, against the Vikings, Marriotts Ridge (8-4) showed its resilience after surrendering the game’s first two runs in the top of the first. The Mustangs tied it at two in the bottom half as Williams’ RBI triple sparked the offense, her first of three hits on the afternoon.

“I think it was really big just to learn to keep our heads up,” senior Jasmine Smith said. “Don’t let that one bad play ruin everything. I think we really did that today. Sure, we dropped a couple of balls, but we didn’t let it affect us. We still pushed through.”

After allowing three hits in the first, Mustangs starter Liv Ober quickly settled in. She threw four consecutive scoreless innings while the offense added onto the lead. Pitching to contact, Ober’s defense backed her up. Brynne Mellady made several tough plays at shortstop.

“Just hitting my spots, inside, outside and changing speeds,” Ober said. “I knew that they were going to put the ball in play and I needed to just do my best to get weak contact, so our defense could take care of the ball. That’s what I did and then we rallied to hit, which helped us a ton.”

The Mustangs scored a run in the second, fourth and five innings to build a 5-2 advantage. Smith laced an RBI triple in the second, while Williams’ second extra-base hit of the game led to a run in the fifth.

Mt. Hebron (7-4) broke through once again in the sixth. Danielle Green and Alyssa Perez hit back-to-back infield singles and later scored on a Mustangs throwing error. Yet again, Marriotts Ridge responded and closed out the inning to prevent further damage, stranding two Vikings on base.

“The key to the whole thing was we left seven players on base,” Mt. Hebron coach Mark Graydon said. “It’s the execution part, they just need to put a bat on the ball. We tried to bunt today and we couldn’t do it. We still have a young team, they’re almost all sophomores, so they’re still learning.”

Within a run, Mt. Hebron had one last shot in the seventh. Ober closed the door on that with a 1-2-3 inning as Marriotts Ridge secured its second one-run victory in the past week. Parson believes these tight games will benefit his team in the postseason, learning how to play with pressure.

“Today we were a little bit more resilient than yesterday, so that was fun to watch,” Parson said. “We learned a lot from yesterday’s game and showed it today. We’re going to make mistakes, so you’ve got to learn how to flush it. We have to figure out what our identity is as a team. Are we going to fold every time things get harder or are we going to step up. Today, a couple of kids stepped up and that’s awesome to see.”

Mt. Hebron — 200 002 0 — 4 8 3

Marriotts Ridge — 210 110 X — 5 11 2

WP: Liv Ober; LP: Abby Magdar.

3B: MR- Jasmine Smith, Sienna Williams; 2B: MR- Sienna Williams