Russellville softball falls behind in area race with loss to Muscle Shoals

By Staff
Scot Beard
MUSCLE SHOALS -Russellville opened its area schedule against a tough opponent Thursday and suffered a shutout loss to rival Muscle Shoals.
The Lady Golden Tigers struggled offensively while the Lady Trojans took advantage of a four Russellville errors to cruise to the 6-0 victory.
Russellville's offense showed some promise early as Casey Bolton led off the game with an infield single before stealing second base.
Brittany Mitchell moved Bolton to third with a sacrifice, but the threat ended there as the next two Russellville batters grounded out to end the inning.
Muscle Shoals scored a pair of runs on five hits in the bottom half of the first inning.
With one out in the second Sydney McDuffa got in infield single to give the Lady Golden Tigers another base runner, but Muscle Shoals' defense stepped up and retired the next two batters.
Russellville would not have another player reach base until the fifth inning when Haley Arrington reached on a single.
During that span Muscle Shoals scored four more runs to push its lead to 6-0.
Russellville tried to get a rally going in the seventh inning, but it fell short.
Jordan Murray led off the inning with a single to left field. McDuffa followed with a bloop infield single that allowed Murray to reach second base.
Hollie Hillman then reached on an error by the Muscle Shoals third baseman to give the Lady Golden Tigers a bases-loaded situation with no outs.
Arrington then struck out and Brenda Bohannon hit into a double play to end the game.
McDuffa led the Lady Golden Tigers with two singles while Bolton, Murray and Arrington had one single each.
Breannia Malone pitched a complete game for Russellville. She allowed 10 hits, struck out four and did not issue any walks.