Lady ‘Stangs run-ruled by Luling in three innings

NIXON — The Nixon-Smiley Lady Mustangs didn’t have too many opportunities for a comeback as they lost 19-0 to the Luling Lady Eagles on Friday.

Luling’s Brandi Corpus was dominant in the pitching circle, throwing four strikeouts while facing just nine batters in the three-inning game.

Nonetheless, Lady Mustangs’ head coach James Watkins has seen improvement, especially with Nixon-Smiley at the bat making contact against a pitcher like Corpus.

“We’re hitting the ball, that’s the thing,” he explained. “We’re hitting the ball but unfortunately just didn’t find those holes.”

Defensively, the Lady Mustangs had too many fielding mistakes as they racked up four errors in the three innings played. The timing of getting the ball to where it’s supposed to go also seemed to be a bit of a problem for Nixon-Smiley.

“Our throws have more of an arc to it instead of being straight,” Watkins explained, “so we’ll definitely keep working on that. Some routine plays we’re not making but we’re communicating, we’re having fun out there, it’s just unfortunate that the score is not going our way but we’ve improved on last year. We’ve definitely improved on last year and that’s great.”

After giving up six runs in the first, the Lady Mustangs gave up nine more in second and four in the third to get to 19 runs.

Despite the 14 hits, Watkins highlighted his pitcher, Katelyn Sellers for “doing her job.”

“Our pitcher is throwing strikes and doing her job,” he notes. “I think she only walked one batter and hit one batter and that was it. So they’re hitting the ball because she’s throwing strikes and she’s improved on her consistency in throwing in the strike zone which is all we can ask from a pitcher.”

The Lady Mustangs are still in search of their first district win, but Watkins believes that it’ll come, especially with the improved hitting.

“We just need to keep hitting the ball like we’re doing and we will find those holes [in the field].”

Nixon-Smiley is on the road tonight to take on Goliad. First pitch is at 7 p.m.