Up to bat in the third inning, Heidi Facklam wasn’t worried about the pressure.
With one and the bases loaded, Kickapoo’s clean-up hitter was simply waiting for her pitch.
She didn’t have to wait long.
Facklam’s second-pitch line drive cleared the bases and gave the Lady Chiefs the lead en route to a 5-1 victory over Branson Thursday night. The senior shortstop reached third on an error and finished with a pair of RBI on the play due to a Kickapoo baserunning error.
“Down and outside,” Facklam said. “I was just waiting for that exact pitch to drive, and I got it. That’s what I was wanting to do … just score as many as a I could.”
Kickapoo head coach Jason Howser was quick to praise Facklam for her plate awareness and discipline.
“What I like is what she’s done all year,” Howser said. “She knows who she is, and she knows the type of hitter she is. She’s not one-dimensional. You pitch it away, she’s going to take it away. You pitch it in, she’s going to turn on it. That’s what makes her a very dangerous hitter.”
The four-run surge gave Kickapoo a little breathing room and, for pitcher Emily Admire, it turned out to be more than enough.
After giving up a run in the first inning off Tori O’Dell’s sacrifice fly, Admire settled in and retired 19 of the next 20 hitters. Only a Gracie Jaeger single in the sixth inning broke Kickapoo’s defensive streak.
While her effective arsenal consists of six different pitches, the junior right-hander relied on her bread-and-butter pitches as the game wore on.
“I’d say my best pitch is always my curveball,” Admire said. “It’s usually my go-to pitch, but my screwball is … it’s either on or it’s off. Tonight, I really had to have that on, because Branson has a good pull-hitting team. That inside pitch really gets them jammed up, and so I had to make sure I was on my game with my screwball.”
Admire finished with three strikeouts and three allowed hits. Originally scheduled to be played in Branson, the game was moved to Kickapoo due to afternoon thunderstorms in the Tri-Lakes area.
For Branson and head coach Kent Doyle, the disappointing loss also provides the opportunity to continue working on mental mistakes that have plagued the Lady Pirates recently.
“We had five errors,” Doyle said. “Coupled with a couple mental mistakes, we call it seven errors. You can’t expect to win a ball game committing seven errors. Our pitcher threw well enough to win, but that’s our Achilles heel defensively, having a bad inning. Tonight, we just happened to have two that kept us from fighting back.”
Katrina Ford threw all seven innings for the Lady Pirates in the loss. The freshman left-hander gave up eight hits and zero walks on the afternoon.
Up next for Kickapoo (7-5) is a Friday matchup at home against Republic, while Branson (7-3) opens play Saturday with Hollister in the opening game of the Lady Pirate Fall Classic.
Varsity final: Kickapoo – 5, Branson – 1
Branson 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 1
Kickapoo 0 0 4 1 0 0 x — 5
