The Grundy R-5 softball teams split a pair of HDC Conference contests on the road Tuesday night, with the boys downing Winston, 10-8, while the girls lost, 9-4.
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R-5 Boys
The Panthers scored three runs in the top of the ninth inning to defeat Winston for a conference victory.
The two teams were tied at 7-7 at the end of regulation play, forcing extra three extra innings before the winning runs were scored.
The Panthers led after one inning, 3-1, and held a 6-4 lead after three innings. R-5 scored one more in the fifth to add to its lead, 7-4. Winston put up two runs to cut into the advantage, then tied the game in the bottom of the sixth to force the contest into extra innings.
“It was a good win on the road,” R-5 Coach Les Jackson said. “We made the plays defensively when we had to.”
Grundy R-5 had four players with two hits each, led by Bryce Rains, who also had 3 RBIs. Cody Brown had a home run and 2 RBIs while Tyler Jackson and Jordan Whitney each added two hits.
Rains got the win on the mound for the Panthers, pitching all nine innings and giving up nine hits, one walk while striking out three.
The boys are 2-2 on the year.
R-5 Girls
The Grundy R-5 girls held the lead early in the contest, scoring the first run of the game and taking a 1-0 advantage after one inning. The Lady Panthers put up one more run before Winston smacked the ball for four runs to go up 4-2.
The Lady Panthers added one more run in the third and one in the fifth while Winston collected two runs in the third and fourth innings and one in the sixth.
“We hit the ball well enough to win, but we had a number of defensive mistakes that led to several unearned runs,” R-5 Coach Curtis May said.
Vanessa Lentz led the Lady Panthers with two hits and two RBIs. Heather Vivone and Mina Headrick also had two hits each.
Lentz was the losing pitcher, giving up eight hits while walking one and striking out six.
The R-5 girls are 0-3 on the year.
Both the boys and girls will play in the HDC Tournament this weekend at Bethany.
R-5 Boys vs. Meadville
The Grundy R-5 boys traveled to Meadville last Friday and took an 11-9 win.
The Panthers fought back from a 7-1 deficit, scoring 10 runs in the fourth and fifth innings to pick up the win.
Tyler Jackson was 1-for-1 with two RBIs and scored three runs. Cody Brown had two hits and scored two runs and Rob Crawford had one hit and two RBIs.
“The boys fell behind early, but had two big innings offensively and made some big defensive plays in the last four innings of the game,” Coach Jackson said.