Rachel Macaulay and Maxie Saceda-Hurt showed why they bat at the top of the order on Friday night.
The senior duo started rallies in the first two innings that helped the Thunder Mountain High School softball team to an early 8-0 lead and eventual 11-4 win over Juneau-Douglas High School at Dimond Park.
“Our job as leadoff batters was to get on base and get our team fired up about hitting the ball,” Macaulay said.
They did an excellent job at it, too.
Macaulay and Saceda-Hurt led the Falcons with four hits apiece and Kyra Jenkins Hayes and Marissa Tanuvasa Tuvaifale each posted three.
Abby Meiners and Skylar Hickok combined for five hits in the loss.
Facing pitcher Elisa Fabrello, the Falcons broke the game open in the first inning when Macaulay and Saceda-Hurt crushed the ball to right field. Nina Fenumiai and Jenkins Hayes added two more hits, bringing Macaulay and Saceda-Hurt home.
Three more runs crossed home before Morgan Balovich threw out Mariah Tanuvasa Tunaifale at first to end the scoring spree.
“It was a little bit stressful having to pitch the varsity game but I’m just working on my mechanics and everything and how to place the ball,” Fabrello said.
JDHS put together a nice second inning, though. Fabrello, Meiners and Leah Spargo set up a two-out grand slam by Balovich that cut the Crimson Bears’ deficit to 8-4.
JDHS threatened to add more runs in the fourth and fifth innings as Fenumiai hit and walked several batters. The Falcons made timely outs in each inning, though, stranding two runners in the fourth and three in the fifth.
“We had some errors, we left some people on bases, which is never good,” JDHS coach Lexi Razor said. “I thought it wasn’t bad for us. We know we have improvements to make so we’re just going to keep chugging along.”
The Falcons improve to 4-3 overall and 3-0 in the Southeast Conference. The Falcons swept the Sitka Wolves in the first week of Southeast Conference play but was tripped up in all three games of a mid-April trip to Washington state.
It was the second conference loss of the season for JDHS, now 1-3 overall.
JDHS and TMHS played again on Saturday 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Only the first game will count toward the conference standings.
The Crimson Bears host the next crosstown series on Thursday, May 10 and Friday, May 11. The second game of the Friday doubleheader will be a “pink out,” with each team wearing pink jerseys for breast cancer awareness.
• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nainsworth@juneauempire.com. Follow Empire Sports on Twitter at @akempiresports.
Thunder Mountain’s Mariah Tanuvasa Tuvaifale, left, is thrown out running to first by Juneau-Douglas’ Skylar Hickok at Dimond Park on Friday. TMHS won 11-4. (Michael Penn | Juneau Empire)
