PREP SOFTBALL: North Hardin downs Elizabethtown, 5-2 (05/21)

Neal Cardin

Elizabethtown first baseman Snydey Herzog stretches for a wide throw and misses allowing North Hardin's Meaghan Donohue to reach first during District Tournament action Tuesday at Elizabethtown High School.

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Neal Cardin

Elizabethtown's Jessica Rediker gets a hit on North Hardin pitcher Andrea Whelan's pitch during 17th District Tournament action Tuesday at Elizabethtown High School.

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By NATHANIEL BRYAN nbryan@thenewsenterprise.com ELIZABETHTOWN — Lindsey Blair had one of her best hitting nights of the season Tuesday, but it was the glove of the junior third baseman which proved more valuable to the North Hardin Trojans. With the potential winning run and the area’s batting average leader at the plate, Blair put an end to an 11-pitch at-bat by senior Jessica Rediker by fielding a hard-hit grounder and stepping on third base to secure the top-seeded Trojans a 5-2 win over the fourth-seeded Elizabethtown Lady Panthers in the early semifinal of the 17th District Softball Tournament at Elizabethtown. “I was playing the line hard,” Blair said. “I was thinking about going to first, but then I heard Christy (Brock, North Hardin’s senior shortstop) tell me to go three (third base).” Rediker, who had flown out to the outfield in her previous two at-bats, fell behind 1-1 in the count to freshman Andrea Whelan before fouling off seven of Whelan’s next eight offerings to the left side. But on the next pitch, Whelan’s 103rd of the game, Rediker crushed the ball right at Blair. By the time Blair fielded the ball, Rediker would likely have been safe at first and eighth-grade left fielder Dionna Ditto, who was on third, would have scored. So Blair calmly backtracked and stepped on third base just ahead of the slide of junior shortstop Caitlin Adams for the game-ending force out. “That was one of the longest at-bats of my pitching career. It seemed like I threw her 20 or 30 pitches,” Whelan said. “I didn’t even think about going to third. I thought for sure she’d go to first. But Lindsey stepped up and used her head.” Blair and the rest of the hitters in the bottom of North Hardin’s batting order kept the Trojans in the game offensively while the top of the lineup despite returning two players to the lineup that had missed several games recently due to injury: junior center fielder Sarah Anderson and senior first baseman Heather Oldham. Blair, who entered the final weekend of the regular season batting just .225, went 2-for-3 with two singles and one run scored while batting sixth. “I don’t want to say my offense has come around because I don’t want to jinx it,” said Blair, who reached base in all three plate appearances. “But it has improved. I just hope now it stays that way.” Brock, the No. 8 hitter, who was primarily the flex (non-hitting) player most of the season, went 2-for-3 with a triple and helped two runners advance a base in her lone at-bat without a hit. The Trojans’ ninth batter, junior right fielder Shameen Eure, went 1-for-3 with two runs batted in. “The bottom of the lineup basically got the job done for us,” said veteran North Hardin coach Donnie Baker, whose team notched its third consecutive 5th Region Tournament berth with the victory and will play second-seeded Central Hardin (20-13) for the district title at 7:30 tonight. “And Christy was hungry. She’s a senior. She doesn’t want anyone to bat for her.” North Hardin (20-12) took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second as Blair hit a one-out single, moved to second when senior catcher Sarah Greenwood was hit by a pitch, took third on Brock’s infield groundout and scored when Eure legged out a slap bunt for a single. Elizabethtown (12-19) responded with two runs in the top of the third, but North Hardin replied with two runs of its own and took the lead back for good in the bottom of the inning on one hit, one walk and two infield fielding errors. “We made untimely mistakes and they came back to bite us,” said first-year Elizabethtown coach Kyle Goodlett. “We took the lead and gave it right back. We couldn’t make the plays when we had to.” The third inning was the start of Elizabethtown’s demise defensively as North Hardin tacked on an insurance run in the fourth inning thanks to one Elizabethtown infield error and added another run in the sixth thanks to two more infield errors. After leaving 11 runners on base in its quarterfinal win Monday night over John Hardin, Elizabethtown left eight runners on base against North Hardin. The Lady Panthers stranded a runner on second base in each of the final five innings. But errors and leaving runners on base weren’t Goodlett’s biggest disappointment. “Not winning was the biggest disappointment. You can blame it on what you want, but we just didn’t take care of business,” he said. “We left runners on base against a good pitcher, we didn’t capitalize on our chances at the end and we made errors. So pick what you want, but our biggest disappointment was not winning.” NORTH HARDIN 5, ELIZABETHTOWN 2                                           R   H   E Elizabethtown   002    000   0   2   6   6 North Hardin     012    101   x   5   6   2 Kristen Todd and Jessica Rediker. Andrea Whelan and Sarah Greenwood. WP: Whelan. LP: Todd (12-19). 2B: Caitlin Adams (E). 3B: Christy Brock (NH). Nathaniel Bryan can be reached at 505-1758