Jimtown High School

Eberhart Brilliant on Hill for Jimtown By Red Williams Freelance Sports Writer ELKHART – Perfection is a difficult task in high school softball. Just ask Kiyla Eberhart, starting pitcher Wednesday in Jimtown’s 4-0 defeat of visiting Mishawaka Marian. Eberhart, a junior right- hander for the Jimmies, mowed the batters down in order for the first five innings. Marian’s Taylor Geiger finally got a solid lead-off single to leftfield to break her spell. “Jimtown had an outstanding pitcher and enough bats to make it tough on us,” Marian coach John Whitaker said. The Jimmies collected eight hits in the contest and took advantage of four errors by the Knights. They put together four hits, two of them on the infield, to score a pair of runs in the third inning. Eberhart helped her own cause with a one-out bunt for a single, and ended up on third on a two-base error by the Knights. Abbey Brown followed with a solid line drive to center to send Eberhart home, and she came home one batter later on a double from Kendal McPhee. The Jimmies notched two more runs in the sixth: Alexa Alvey led off with a single to center, moved to third on a pair of fielder’s choices and scampered home on another bunt single by Eberhart. The latter scored the fourth run on another Marian error. The Knights (1-3) put together a rally in their final inning. Addison Henley doubled to right and Abby Hester sacrificed her to third. But Eberhart struck out the next two batters to maintain her shut-out. Eberhart had a dozen strike-outs, and the Jimmies backed her up with errorless ball. Jimtown coach, Brandi Eberhart, the pitcher’s mother, said she was happy the way her club came out swinging. “We’ve been struggling at the plate,” she said, “getting just enough to get by.” She also was pleased with the teams base- running: “We’ve got some pretty good speed, and that really helped today. They’re smart base-runners.” The Jimmies don’t get much time to savor the victory, heading out of town for a pair of tough games, Northridge on Thursday and Elkhart on Friday. The game was played in just over an hour and 15 minutes, under iron-gray clouds and a strong wind blowing in from right field.