ERIE — It’s a high school softball rivalry that is separated by 10 hours and 720 miles.
Every year the Broken Arrow Tigers make the journey up to Colorado from Oklahoma to play in the Erie Tournament of Champions and every year their marquee game on the docket is against Legacy.
For Lightning coach Dawn Gaffin, it’s a game that kind of defines their season and the one they use as a measuring stick for the rest of the campaign.
“It’s usually the best team we are going to see all season and we don’t know them and it really tests our girls on how they make those adjustments,” said Gaffin, whose team surrendered seven runs in the first inning en route to a 9-4 loss at The Ballparks at Erie.
“And today we didn’t do that very well until after the first inning.”
Still, it was a successful tournament for the Lightning, which beat the hosts from Erie on Thursday and then followed that up with a nice 10-2 rout of Union, Oklahoma on Friday.
But in the opening inning against the strong-hitting Tigers nothing went the Lightning’s way. The first seven batters reached, six with hits, and in all 13 came to the plate against pitcher Haley Smith.
“It was frustrating, but at the same time it was a learning experience and learning to adjust,” Smith said. “We just have to be tougher.”
Legacy created traffic on the basepaths and hit the ball hard, but those knocks were both untimely and usually right at the third baseman Michelle Sheppard — who stayed busy on the Tigers’ infield.
Much like they did last week against Wheat Ridge, the Lightning, while trying to chip away at the lead, had runners thrown out both at third and at home during the course of the game.
“You take away the first inning, the game was 4-2, period,” Gaffin said. “The problem is we can’t spot them seven runs, but that is 20-20 hindsight.
“I just hope that is something they don’t have to learn. They saw them play last night and maybe got a little intimidated and then they figured out that they weren’t any better than us and we held them and we did fine.”
Legacy, which scored three runs in the fifth to make the score a little more respectable before the two-hour tournament time limit ran out, got two hits apiece from Kam Brothers and Celyn Whitt.
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Broken Arrow, Okla. 9, Legacy 4
At The Ballparks at Erie
Broken Arrow 701 10 — 9 11 3
Legacy 010 03 — 4 6 3
W — Myers. L — Smith (3-3).
Broken Arrow hitting (ab-r-h-rbi) — Maegan Rohow 4-1-1-0, Michelle Sheppard 3-2-2-2, Hannah Heinrichs 2-1-1-0, Alexa Romero 4-1-2-1, Ashley Chesser 4-1-1-0, Erin Skinner 3-2-2-2, Caitlin Paolini 3-1-2-2, Marcella McKinney 3-0-0-0, Kenzy Mathis 2-0-0-0, Hannah Reed 0-0-0-0, Alyssa Myers 0-0-0-0, Ashley Watts 0-0-0-0. Totals 26-9-11-7. 2B — Rohow. HR — Skinner (solo in 4th). SB — Paolini, Sheppard.
Legacy hitting (ab-r-h-rbi) — Katelyn Kubitschek 2-0-0-0, Kam Brothers 3-1-2-0, Alyssa Geist 2-0-0-0, Haley Smith 3-0-0-0, Gianna Ball 0-1-0-0, Megan Foley 3-1-1-0, Celyn Whitt 2-0-2-1, Emily Taggart 2-0-0-0, Megan Maier 0-1-0-0, Haley Cordova 3-0-0-0, Trisha Cook 0-0-0-0, Jordan Sheard 2-0-1-1. Totals 22-4-6-2.
Broken Arrow pitching (ip-h-r-er-bb-so) — Reed .1-0-0-0-2-0, Myers 4.1-6-4-2-1-0, Watts 0.1-0-0-0-0-0.
Legacy pitching (ip-h-r-er-bb-so) — Smith 5-11-9-8-3-1.
