Sports  

By Heath Clary
Special to the Anvil Herald

On a cold Tuesday evening, March 26, the Medina Valley Panther softball team hosted Memorial.

The Panthers needed only three innings to defeat the opposition, demoralizing the Minutemen 18-0. Lauren Sotello was the game’s MVP, tossing a no-hitter and reaching base all three times at bat.

After Sotello mowed down the Minutemen in order in the top of the first inning, it didn’t take long for the Panther bats to get hot. Brooke Mangold led off the game with a fly ball to left field that was misjudged off the bat by the Memorial outfielder. With Mangold’s blazing speed, she was able to make it all the way to third standing up for a leadoff triple. The next batter, Samantha Saldaña, laid a bunt down the third base line, allowing Mangold to score on what turned out to be a perfectly executed suicide squeeze. The runs kept on coming for the Panthers, with eight out of the nine starters crossing the plate at least once. When the inning finally ended, the Panthers had scored eleven runs, leaving no doubt about the outcome.

The second inning got a bit dicey for Sotello. After the first two batters walked, she bore down and got the next hitter to ground into a fielder’s choice, and then calmly struck out the next two batters to get out of the inning unscathed.

The Panthers’ offense continued cranking out hits and runs, scoring seven more runs in the inning. Junior third baseman Sarah Muennink roped a double into the left centerfield gap to score two. After Sotello was hit by a pitch, Alex Williams lined a triple past the centerfielder, scoring two more.

With an 18-0 lead, Sotello breezed through the top of the third inning, ending the game on the mercy rule. When Muennink fielded a ground ball at third base and threw it across the diamond for the third out, the no-hitter was in the books. Sotello ended the game with five strikeouts and moves her record to 4-2 on the season.

MV is now 8-0 in district play, and will visit Uvalde on Tuesday, April 2.