By Jacob Mayer
The Marissa-Coulterville Lady Meteors hit the ball early and often Saturday, as they defeated the Trico Lady Pioneers 14-4 in five innings to win the Trico Class 1A softball regional championship.
The top-seeded Lady Meteors (19-15) took control of the game early with seven runs, along with two of Trico’s six errors on the day, in the second inning to jump out to an 8-0 lead.
With two outs and a runner on first in the Meteors half of the second, designated player Kendra Goss hit a double to score left fielder Paige Phelps and open the flood gates.
Two of the next three batters reached on an error while the other was walked, setting up center fielder Sonnie Young with a chance to break the game open, which she did with a double that scored two runners.
Trico, the two seed, (9-18) tried to get back into the game in the fourth by pushing across its only four runs of the game.
Two singles and a walk to Trico’s 4-5-6 hitters loaded the bases with nobody out to begin the inning, and designated player Megan Ehlers walked to bring in the Lady Pioneers’ first run of the day.
Later in the inning, second baseman Katie Taylor came to the plate with two outs and drove in the Pioneers’ second run of the game with an infield single, and third baseman Courtney Brandon followed with a double that plated two.
The Lady Meteors, however, came right back in the bottom half of the inning with two more runs to make the score 10-4, and they finished off the  Lady Pioneers in the fifth with four more runs to win the game by the 10 run mercy rule.
Marissa-Coulterville head coach Anne Trieb said the team came into the game with a plan of attack that they were able to execute.
“We wanted to bunt, and we did that early on and were successful with that,” she said. “We just came in wanting to hit the ball, and I’m proud of my girls because that’s what we did.”
The heart of the Lady  Meteor’s lineup came through Saturday, with Young, catcher Camille Bumann and Phelps going a combined 7-for-11 at the plate with seven runs scored and seven RBI.
Winning pitcher Ashley Lehman (19-14) threw all five innings for the Meteors, giving up four runs on eight hits with four walks and four strikeouts. Trieb said she was pleased with how she performed in the clutch.
“Ashley’s a freshman pitcher, and I thought she got rattled a little bit early on in the inning they scored four (runs),” she said.  “But one thing Ashley does nicely is perform under pressure after she settles down.”
On the other side of the diamond, errors plagued the Lady Pioneers throughout the game, and Marissa-Coulterville was able to take advantage and score nine unearned runs.
“We didn’t make the plays that we’ve got to make,” Trico head coach Andy Franklin said. “We dropped some fly balls in the outfield, we booted a couple of ground balls, we threw one against the fence.”
At the plate, Brandon went 2-for-3 and drove in two of the Pioneers’ four runs. Center fielder Megan Fults also went 2-for-2 with a run scored.
Maki Hartmann took the loss for the Pioneers. She threw 4.2 innings, giving up 14 runs, five earned, on  14 hits, with five walks and a strikeout.
Franklin said the team knew coming into the game the Lady Meteors were a good hitting team, but he thought Hartmann did a good job of hitting her spots.
“I thought she was doing an excellent job,” he said. “She just had to try to readjust to where they were calling strikes.”
As he looks toward next season, Franklin said the future looks bright with new faces to add to the program.
“Next year should be a good year for Pioneer softball,” he said. “We’ve got eight outstanding freshmen coming in, some more pitching to back up what we have, some more good hitters to try to replace the ones that we’re losing this year and next year should be a good year.”
Marissa-Coulterville will move on to play the two-time defending state champion Cobden Lady  Appleknockers Wednesday in the Class 1A sectional semifinals at Cobden.