Baker, Sager, Adams Combine on 1-Hit Gem

BELLEVIEW - One of the best softball sayings ever made was 'Good pitching beats good hitting almost every time.'
During Friday's opening round of the Dixie Youth League Belles (ages 13-15) State Softball Tournament in Marion County, Spring Hill skipper Louis Caiazzo got all the great pitching he needed as Hernando County squad beat Chipley 4-1.
He tourney features eight teams in a double elimination format. Only the Florida State Champion advances to the World Series.
Megan Baker, Brooke Sager and Alexis Adams combined to hold Chipley to one hit and move Spring Hill into a winner's bracket game Saturday afternoon.
"We capitalized on a couple of hits in the seventh inning and got a couple of insurance runs," summed up Caiazzo. "But he also said that getting good pitching helps even more.
"We had Megan Baker go the opening three innings, then I used Brooke Sager until the fifth when we made a throwing error and gave away a run. Then I brought Alexis Adams and she shut them out in the fifth, sixth and seventh."

Breaking through

Spring Hill got a run in the third on a single by Baker, a ground out by Ashley Bettineschi and Baker scored on a Chipley error on a ball hit by Gina Thompson, 1-0.
In the top of the sixth, a run-scoring double by Adams brought in Gina Thompson that made it 2-0.
But in the bottom of the inning, Chipley's Janae Ritter singled, stole second, was sacrificed to third and scored on a Spring Hill error, 2-1.
But in the seventh, Spring Hill added two key runs as Shannon Cataldo walked, Brooke Young singled and Baker and Sager had back-to-back RBI singles.
With each pitcher limited to 15 innings for the entire tourney, Caiazzo is confident his pitching will stand up, he only hopes his team hitting follow suit.
"If we can get our hitting going and get on some kind of roll," he predicted. "We're in very good shape."

Spring Hill 4, Chipley 1
SH 001 001 2 -- 4 5 3
CHIP 000 001 0 -- 1 6 1
W - Sager. L - Salter.
SH - Baker, Sager (3), Adams (5) and Adams.
CHIP - Salter, Peters (4), Sison (7) and Peters.
2B - Adams (SH).
Records - Spring Hill (1-0), Chipley (0-1).