By Scott Vanscoy (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Senior Abbey Gann pitched a five inning, no-hit shut out of the Parkview Vikings on Thursday night. Gann came within one hitter of pitching a perfect game but her own error in the bottom of the fourth ended the bid. Gann struck out 10 of the 15 batters she faced as she coasted to the 10-0 win.
“We have been putting in a lot of work, day in and day out, six days a week,” said Gann. “We are such a family this year, and we all have individual strengths that we’ve been working to pull together, and tonight we did. We wanted to dominate in every way and not to let up.”
Long-time West Plains coach Don Long was not surprised by Gann’s performance.
“Abbey is just a battler,” said Long. “She was this way as a freshman and she’s gotten a little better every year. I have a lot of confidence in her. She throws pretty hard and I think Parkview is maybe a young team so that makes it hard to catch up to. I think she’s got a few schools looking at her but she’s just waiting to see what her options are, and that’s good.”
On allowing just one to reach base, Gann said, “It’s very important to not walk anyone. Any time I make myself vulnerable like that, it makes my job so much harder and my girls’ jobs that much harder.”
West Plains got on the board first, scoring two runs in the first inning. That would be all Gann needed, as she struck out two of the first three batters in the bottom of the first. In the second inning, Parkview got West Plains to go three up, three down, and appeared to be settling down. Gann again showed her dominance in the bottom of the second, striking out the side.
West Plains opened up the game when they scored six runs in the top of the third and the Vikings could not respond.
“Against a pitcher like Gann,” said Parkview assistant coach Brett Gallion, “you just tell them to try to get aggressive early, and try to not extend counts and give her the advantage. She was around the zone all night, and we were just trying to get an approach where our girls could put the ball in play. We wanted to put some pressure on the defense.”
Gann made her only mistake of the night in the bottom of the fourth inning when she dropped a pop fly, allowing Parkview their only base runner. Junior catcher Alyssa Sims bailed out her pitcher when she picked the runner off of second base to end any scoring threat.
Gann cruised through the fifth inning with the momentum behind her, striking out the side.
“I felt like our biggest thing was that our effort wasn’t there,” said Gallion. “West Plains brought a lot more intensity. We want to learn from a game like this and not dwell on it, turn the page. We have a game tomorrow, it’s a new game, we need to learn from our mistakes and come out and play harder the next game.”
With high expectations this season, the West Plains Zizzers are looking to make a return to the Class 3 Quarterfinals. They know it won’t be easy but Coach Long has his team ready.
“These kids, they went to the quarterfinals last year and we’ve got six starters back, so they are pretty seasoned,” said Long. “You can’t take teams for granted because that can really come back to get you. We play our game all the time, regardless of who we are playing. If we do that, we are going to be alright.”
West Plains 10 Parkview 0
West Plains 206 02 — 10
Parkview 000 00 — 0
