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Lashing of Lubbock: East pounds Coronado, 9-0, to open regional semifinals
BY Kevin Hageland, khageland@starlocalnews.com
The regional semifinal round is supposed to represent a struggle between two of the top 16 teams remaining in the state.
Friday in Abilene, the Plano East softball team wasted little time in alerting Lubbock Coronado they would be the superior squad as the Lady Panthers scored six runs in the first two innings en route to a 9-0 victory and 1-0 lead in the best-of-3 series.
"I thought we really set the tone well tonight," said Karen Kalhoefer, East head coach.
Senior Chandler Cink led off the bottom of the first with one of her two hits and then senior Holly Kern walked to put two runners on. The middle of the lineup took over from there as juniors KK Stevens, Jacque Anthony and Sarah Morales helped pace a four-run outburst. Anthony was particularly effective on the night with two hits and three RBIs while Morales posted two walks.
"Our middle of the lineup was big tonight," Kalhoefer said. "They weren't necessarily crushing the ball, but they were getting good solid hits and getting on base.
"Really great situational hitting too."
That same description fit with East junior Ashleigh Hinshaw as she posted four hits and three RBIs.
"Ashleigh played really well tonight," Kalhoefer said.
The cross-the-board production, which included a pair of RBIs from sophomore Destiny Garza, allowed East to grow its lead to 6-0 through two innings, 7-0 through four and 9-0 though six.
Coronado would mount little response.
The Lady Mustangs' best offense early on was the Lady Panthers' defense as East committed three errors.
"I think the wind was a little tricky to deal with and got to us at the start of the game," Kalhoefer said. "But a quick timeout fixed all that."
East's defense was sharp the remainder of the way as it worked in collaboration with Kern, who went the distance and allowed only two hits while striking out five in the 5-0 victory.
"Holly pitched well," Kalhoefer said. "And our defense was solid too because Coronado was able to put the bat on the ball a good amount."
Not enough to mount a threat though as East took a 1-0 series lead.
But that advantage and Friday's lopsided triumph hasn't lured the Lady Panthers into a false sense of security.
"A lot of times in a series you see the team that won Game 1 get overconfident and the team that lost is working even harder because their season is on the line now," Kalhoefer said. "We don't want that to happen to us, so I challenged the girls to forget about this game. We will be wearing a different uniform tomorrow and so will they, so pretend like it's a different team and that we have to win this next game."
East had an opportunity to close out the series at 3 p.m. Saturday from Abilene Christian (results not available at press time) with Game 3, if necessary, to follow.
"The girls know we need to continue to play consistently and go out there ready to attack the ball," Kalhoefer said. "Both of those things will be important because we expect Coronado is going to make a push with their backs against the wall."
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