South Harrison High School softball takes care of Maysville on the road

MAYSVILLE, Mo. (KQTV) - The South Harrison High School softball team finished a rainout game with Maysville on the road on Monday and came away with a 10-2 victory.

South Harrison junior pitcher and recent Syracuse softball commit Rory Fitzgerald finished with 10 strikeouts on the mound while only giving up 1 hit and 2 runs. Senior and North Carolina Tar Heel commit Bailey Barnett finished 2-for-3 at the plate with 1 RBI on a solo home run. Sophomore Madi Meadows finished 2-for-4 with 4 RBI including a 3-run home run, sophomore Molly Bottcher finished 2-for-4 with 2 RBI and freshman Attlie Eivins was 1-for-3 with 1 RBI.

For Maysville, sophomore Elly Sobotka finished with 6 strikeouts on the mound in 7 innings pitched while giving up 8 hits and 10 runs.

"We've been getting a lot more energetic in the games and trying really hard," said Fitzgerald. "We're hitting a lot better but sometimes we just have to really adjust and then throughout the counts we get a little better at adjusting."

"Our defense has definitely improved a ton from the beginning of the year," said Barnett. I think our at bats have heated up. Since it was raining last week, we went inside and we worked a lot on our hitting and just like knowing what to look for and what to swing at helped."

"We've been hitting it well over the course of this stretch, and that takes so much pressure off your defense," said South Harrison head coach Aaron Fitzpatrick. "Our bats have been doing well and Rory's kind of hit her stride over the last couple of weeks. She's done a good job keeping runs down."

Fitzgerald also spoke about committing to Syracuse in the ACC.

 "Just the culture there, they're really good over there and have really good academics," said Fitzgerald. "They all just have team bonding. They really get the family involved and I really enjoy that."

Coach Fitzpatrick talked about having now two athletes going to play in the ACC on his team with Rory Fitzgerald (Syracuse) and Bailey Barnett (UNC).

"Really happy for both of them. That's really cool just a small town in Missouri to have that. They're going to be playing against each other in a couple years, that's pretty cool. It's an exciting time to be a Lady Bulldog, I'm pretty proud of them."

South Harrison improves to 18-8 on the season and up the team's win streak to 7 straight. The Lady Bulldogs next play at defending Class 3 State Champion Chillicothe on Tuesday, October 6th at 5 pm. Maysville drops to 10-6 and next hosts Marceline on Thursday, October 8th at 5 pm.