It was June before Salem Croy got the pin out of her ankle. The injury suffered last winter cost her half of a basketball season, all of her track and field season and all of her summer. It wasn’t until fall sports practices began on July 31 that she stepped back into an arena of competition.
That was just three weeks ago.
Tuesday night, as the Trenton High School softball team did Grand River Conference battle with Maysville, you would have never known Croy has missed any time at all. The junior catcher blasted two home runs – one a grand slam – drove in seven runs and led Trenton to a 15-0 dismantling of the Wolverines on Griffin Field in the GRC opener for both schools.
“I started to see it about the second week of practice,” Trenton head coach John Cowling said of Croy’s recovery. “The ball started to bounce off her bat again. She hit a couple of balls Saturday as hard as the ones she hit tonight, so I felt like this was coming for a long time now. It’s good to have her back because you just don’t replace Salem Croy.”
Croy’s first blast came in the midst of a 10-run second inning. She lifted a big fly ball to left center with the bases loaded for a grand slam that put Trenton up 7-0. That home run gave her the school record for longballs in a career with 10.
The second shot – number 11 for Croy’s career – came in the fourth with two runners on. This one exploded off her bat leaving the park in a hurry. The line drive easily cleared the fence in center field and it was clear to nearly everyone at the game, Croy included, that the ball was leaving the yard as soon as contact was made.
“All we have focused on lately is just staying back,” Croy said. “In the tournament on Saturday I was just rolling over really far. I had two strikes on both of those (home runs). It made me really nervous, but I just remembered to stay back.”
Following Croy’s second homer, Trenton led 14-0. Maci Moore drove in Taylor Richman for the 15th run of the contest, ending the game by the 15-run rule in the fourth inning.
After one inning of play, the game was anything but safely in hand. Maysville threatened in the first inning, but a strong defensive play by Lexi Whitaker and Sidney Lynch kept Trenton out of trouble. After allowing just one Trenton run in the bottom of the first, Maysville put two more runners on base in the top of the second before Trenton again escaped.
In the top of the second, however, the Bulldogs loaded the bases with two walks and an error. That was all Trenton needed, taking off for the 10-run inning highlighted by Croy’s slam.
“We didn’t get a lot of help like that on Saturday (at the Cameron Tournament),” Cowling said. “We earned a lot of our runs and hit the ball really well. Tonight we started a little slower, but when we can take advantage of that and stay back and drive the ball we are really dangerous.”
Croy finished the game three-for-four with the two bombs, seven RBIs and two runs scored. Moore was three-for-three with an RBI and two runs scored and Lexi Whitaker went one-for-one with a run scored and three RBIs. Trenton also got an RBI and two runs scored from Taylor Richman, who was two-for-three, and hits from Ainsley Tolson and Lynch rounded out the Bulldogs’ 11-hit attack.
In the circle, Tolson picked up the win, going all four innings, allowing no runs, two hits and striking out two.
Trenton moved to 4-1 overall on the season with the, but, more importantly, the Bulldogs established a 1-0 mark in the GRC. Trenton has now won its first nine GRC games – including last year’s conference title game in Stanberry – since joining the league.
The Bulldogs will look to keep that streak going on Thursday as Trenton travels to Princeton to take on the Tigers in another Grand River Conference showdown. The first pitch is scheduled for 5:30 p.m.
JUNIOR VARSITY
Trenton’s junior varsity squad followed suit, defeating the Maysville JV 5-1.
Trenton was led by sophomore McKayla Blackburn’s no-hitter. Blackburn gave up one unearned run off two Bulldog errors and a walk, while striking out three over five innings of work.
“McKayla was in a great rhythm tonight,” JV coach Kameron Cool said. “She had all of her pitches going, hit spots, and created nothing but soft contact all night.”
Offensively, the Bulldogs wreaked havoc on the base paths, stealing seven bases. Kennedy Norton led the charge with three steals and two runs scored. Trenton also got a two-hit night from Sara Spencer who stole two bases of her own.
THS received an RBI base-hit from Mackenzie McAtee who went one-for-three on the night, a triple from Sidney Lynch, one-for-one, and a Sarah Jordan single, one-for-two, to round out the Bulldog offensive attack.
The JV will also face Princeton on Thursday, following the varsity match-up.