Druid Hills’ Erielle Reid beats the tag of Arabia Mountain’s Ashley Brown to score one of her three runs in the Red Devilsl’ 8-1 Region 6-4A victory on Thursday. (Photo by Mark Brock)
Druid Hills’ Erielle Reid led her Red Devils’ teammates to an 8-1 victory over the Arabia Mountain Rams in Region 6-4A softball action at home on Thursday night.
Reid pitched seven innings of one-run, two-hit softball, had two hits of her own, stole four bases and scored three runs in the victory to help her team improve to 2-1 on the season.
After getting out of a jam on the mound in the first inning, Reid singled to center with two-out in the bottom of the first inning. She moved up to second on a wild pitch and then stole third to set up her team’s first run. Reid then collected her second stolen base of the day by taking home for an early 1-0 lead the Red Devils would never relinquish.
Another single and two more stolen bases in the bottom of the third set up Reid’s second run of the game on a wild pitch to make it 2-0.
The lead increased to 5-0 as Druid Hills pushed three runs across the plate in the bottom of the fourth inning keyed by Aja McDowell’s RBI single to score Ella Adams. An error by the Rams and a wild pitch led to the other two runs.
Arabia Mountain got some life in the top of the fifth inning as Tania Shoulders reached on an error with one out. A bunt single by Kenidi Johnson led to another error on the Druid Hills’ infield to allow Shoulders to score to trim the lead to 5-1. Druid Hills cut down a run trying to advance home for the second out and Reid picked up her eighth strike out of the game to end the threat.
Druid Hills added three insurance runs in the bottom of the sixth after Reid set the Rams down 1-2-3 on three groundouts in the top half of the inning.
Two runs scored on Reid’s fly ball to left field which hit off the fielder’s glove. Reid would score on a wild pitch for the final margin of 8-1.
Arabia Mountain loaded the bases via three walks with one out in the top of the seventh and were threatening to pull back into the game.
Druid Hills first baseman Presley Caudle caught an infield fly and doubled up the runner on third to end the game with a heads-up defensive play.
Aja McDowell joined Reid in going 2-4 at the plate for Druid Hills with an RBI and scored two runs.
Kenidi Johnson and Madison Heath each had one hit for Arabia Mountain which fell to 1-2 on the season. Ashley Brown struck out nine and walked 10 in allowing six earned runs and five hits on the mound.