Hit parade continues for Center Grove softball

It really doesn’t seem to matter which softball team is out in the field when Center Grove comes to bat.

Less than 24 hours after pounding out 20 hits against No. 5 Cathedral, the top-ranked Trojans produced another offensive onslaught, scoring seven runs with two out in the second inning and rolling to a 15-2 win over Avon, last year’s state runner-up in Class 4A.

“Every kid in our lineup can hit,” Center Grove coach Russ Milligan said. “They go in streaks just like everything, but when you’ve got nine kids that can all hit home runs and hit doubles and hit balls to the wall, all you need is half of them to be hot in a given day.”

After the Orioles scored two runs on a Trojan error in the second to make it 4-2 in the middle of the second, the Trojans (12-0) struck back in the bottom of the frame. Lexi Fair hit a two-run double and Kaci Finchum added an RBI single before Lauren Wackerly delivered the big blow, a grand slam to right field that stretched the lead to 11-2.

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It was the second bases-loaded blast of the week for Wackerly, who has three homers among her five hits this season.

“Coach Milligan tells me to make something happen, so you’ve got to do something exciting,” Wackerly said with a smile. “She just threw a meatball down the middle, and that was my pitch.”

Center Grove took control early with a four-run first inning. Jordyn Rudd laced a 1-0 pitch down the left-field line for a two-run double, part of a perfect 3-for-3 day. Abby Herbst followed with an RBI single and Brittney York tacked on a sacrifice fly.

Finchum and Herbst also had sac flies in the third and fourth to help close out the scoring.

Herbst allowed just four hits and the two unearned runs in the win, striking out four and walking two despite a narrow strike zone.

“Abby’s been phenomenal,” Milligan said. “That’s a very good hitting team and they’ve scored a bunch of runs this year, and for her to just say, ‘Okay, I’m going to do what she’s giving me and trust our defense,’ it was a credit to her how few walks she had.”

After winning its opener against Roncalli, 4-1, Center Grove has scored at least 10 runs in each of its last 11 games. The Trojans have outscored their opponents 135-14 this season and their team on-base percentage is above .500 for the year.

Wackerly had a pretty simple explanation for the output.

“Our team has a lot of outgoing people,” she said, “so if you put a lot of those people in one spot, then you just get a lot of energy and everybody feeds off of that.”