Slick fielding propels fastpitchers to win

The Spartans face Chief Sealth Monday to determine who makes the playoffs.

The season isn’t over yet for the Spartan varsity fastpitch team.

They lost 12-3 to Seattle Prep Wednesday, but defeated the Panthers 3-2 a day earlier.

After a game against Ingraham yesterday, they face Chief Sealth at Denny Field on Monday in a loser-out game to determine who moves on to the Metro League Tournament.

“We’ll come out firing on Monday,” head coach Liz McCloskey said. “We’ll show them where we stand.”

The Spartans came out firing Wednesday. After the Panthers scored three quick runs, Bainbridge came back with an RBI single by Karen Robinson, scoring Stephanie Wagner.

In the third, Chelsea Baker singled, then scored on a single by Amanda Szarzynski, who advanced to third on a couple of bad throws. She scored on a groundout by Tabitha Mabrey to tie the score.

That was all they could get, as Seattle Prep took advantage of three Bainbridge errors to score five runs in the fourth and four in the fifth to blow the game open.

The Spartans tried to come back in the fifth with two-out base hits from Baker and Szarzynski, but pitcher Nebbie Abraha got Mabrey to ground out and leave them stranded.

In the sixth, Wagner and Robinson singled, but Abraha struck out the next three batters to end the threat.

“We didn’t get on our horse out there,” McCloskey said. “We were on the backside of the horse, but we couldn’t get over the hump.”

The Spartans fared better on Tuesday at Viewridge. They scored all their runs in the third on a two-RBI single by Mabrey and a RBI single by Robinson.

Prep didn’t get a run across until the sixth, scoring two on errors. With a runner on third and two outs, Abraha hit a shot right up the middle, but Szarzynski dived to keep the ball from going into the outfield and made the throw to first.

“That was huge,” McCloskey said. “You couldn’t ask for a better play to finish that game off.”

“Everybody was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m in shock!’” Szarzynski said. “I don’t think anyone was more shocked than I was.”

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