NIWOT — The Niwot Cougars’ bats woke up and found some holes against Longmont on Thursday.
“We have a really good team. Once we get a few girls hitting, it gets the others going,” Niwot third baseman Elyse Cano said.
The Trojans have seen this before, and, unfortunately, they’re getting used to it. In many games, their opponents’ hits seem to fall, while the Trojans hit the ball right at the fielders.
“All the times they hit line drives, it’s always in the hole, and ours are always to the fielder,” Longmont coach Jim Dornan said after his team’s 6-1 loss to Niwot. “That’s when you can only say, ‘Hey, we’re doing all right.’”
The Trojans did all right at the plate, but the Cougars — once they started swinging well — got key hits at the right times. Niwot (6-6, 3-5 Northern Conference) and Longmont (3-10, 1-8) each had five hits, but the Cougars made the most of theirs.
“We’ve been struggling a little,” Niwot coach April Martinez said. “We’ve been making some contact, but we haven’t been making great contact. Today we were able to do that.”
Niwot wasn’t making much contact at the start.
The Trojans took an early 1-0 lead on a run by Sara Roth, who was 3-for-3, and held it until the fourth.
That’s when Niwot’s bats woke up and Longmont’s gloves went dormant. The Cougars scored three runs in both the fourth and fifth innings with the help of three hits and five errors.
“We weren’t worried, because it was 1-0 and our bats usually don’t wake up until the second inning anyway,” Cano said.
The Trojans ran into trouble in the fourth inning, when they committed four errors.
In the fifth inning, Niwot hit the ball hard, getting doubles from Jenessa Tesone and Amanda Broyles.
Despite the loss — and their six errors — the Trojans tried to stress the good things they did in the game.
Shortstop Emily Noble had three errors in the bottom of the fourth inning, but she also laid down a successful sacrifice bunt in the top of the fourth inning.
“We’re just doing everything we can to stay positive and to keep them working on stuff,” Dornan said. “Today was our first and second sacrifices of the season. That’s one thing at a time.
“We’ve got to get bunts down, and (Noble) got those down, so we’re getting her a pizza at lunch (today). We told the girls the first one to get one down gets a pizza.
“We have to look at the positives.”
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