Carson High's Caydee Farnworth celebrates on third base after hitting a walk-off to right field Saturday afternoon to beat Douglas in the regular-season finale.
Photo by Ron Harpin.
Carson High and Douglas softball played nine back-and-forth innings Saturday afternoon to close out the regular season.
With two runners on and two outs in a 1-0 count in the bottom of the ninth, Carson High’s Caydee Farnworth drove a ball into the outfield, which caught the breeze and dropped a few feet inside fair territory.
The double brought Amberlee Ketten around to score and ends the 2021 spring regular season with a walk-off win for the Senators.
“You wouldn’t expect anything but that against your rival,” said Carson High head coach Carlos Mendeguia. “As an athlete, you want to be at-bat to make that happen and Caydee Farnworth did an outstanding job.”
Farnworth ended her trot around the bases on third where she was mobbed by teammates in celebration.
It was Farnworth’s only base hit of the game, but the junior also threw all nine innings in the circle for Carson.
Farnworth recorded nine punch outs while allowing three earned runs and surrendering three walks.
She threw 99 strikes on 154 total pitches.
In the second inning, senior Kedre Luschar hit her seventh home run in the last 15 days to give Carson a 3-1 lead.
Regional matchups
Carson will head into regional play on Tuesday as the No. 4 seed, giving the Senators a home contest against No. 5 McQueen.
“It’s won and lost sometimes on that mound and we are confident in Caydee,” said Mendeguia. “She’s riding high ride now and we are going to ride her as far as she can take us.”
The Senators have beaten McQueen 7-3 and 14-2 this season.
Douglas secured the No. 3 seed prior to Saturday’s contest and will take on No. 6 Reno (5-11) Tuesday.
“We have to have a short memory,” said Douglas high head coach John Glover of the upcoming postseason.
The Tigers have taken care of Reno by scores of 12-0 and 16-2 in their two meetings this year.
Douglas climbs back
Down 4-1 in the sixth, Mehaila Pete helped the Tigers get right back into things with a bloop single to right field.
The base hit brought in two runs before Eva McNinch used a RBI sacrifice fly to left to knot the game at 4-4.
“They have a lot of fight in them,” said Douglas high softball coach John Glover. “We just didn’t execute defensively.”
The Tigers made three errors defensively, but got a quality outing from Talia Tretton in the circle who fanned 15 Carson batters in 8 2/3 innings of work.
Douglas had runners on base in the eighth and ninth innings, but couldn’t secure a timely hit to bring them around.
The win for the Senators mean the two squads split the season series after Douglas won the season-opener 6-1 in Minden.
