COLUMBUS — The Lady Cardinals softball team mounted an enormous comeback March 21 at Cardinals Field and defeated Yoakum High School by a final score of 15-12. Yoakum tacked on the runs early before Columbus scored nine runs in the bottom of the sixth inning and closed out the game on defense in the top of the seventh.
“Right before that inning, I told the girls that we’ve all been in games where we’ve scored eight or more runs in a game,” said Columbus head softball coach Alfred Rosa.
“I said ‘how do you know it’s not this game?’ And it takes one plus one plus one and they just all came through. One hit leads to the next hit leads to the next hit. These kids never not believe that they can lose a game. Sometimes you can’t coach that. They just don’t believe they can lose.”
Columbus’ Taylor Morrow hit a bases-clearing triple in the bottom of the sixth inning to give her team a 13-12 lead. “I was just trying to help my team out,” Morrow said. “I knew we were down and I knew we had to get a good hit. I was just thinking ‘oh, you got to put it in play.’ I don’t know how I hit it, but I did, so that’s good.”
Yoakum scored 12 runs in the first five innings to the Cardinals' six, with the sixth run being on a pass ball from the Lady Bulldogs.
Columbus drew their first run of the sixth inning on a walked in run after three previous walks, a steal, and a pass ball. Another walked in run led to a RBI blooper to right field from Isabel Kainer, which was followed by another pass ball to score a run and make it 12-10.
Morrow’s triple gave Columbus a 13-12 lead, then a base hit to right field by Sophia Wolters scored two runs and made it 15-- 12. Two fly outs and a strike out from Cardinals pitcher Karlee Mathis in the top of the seventh inning closed out the game for a 15-12 victory.
