Two of the best teams in Northeast Florida went head to head on Thursday night. The Mandarin Mustangs took to their home field against the Bartram Trail Bears (15-3). Ashley Wiebenga has had some pretty big games this year from the mound, but Thursday night it was her batting skills that aided in the victory over Bartram Trail 5-0.
Wiebenga started off on the mound for the Mustangs making quick work of the Lady Bears batters, striking out one. Nicole Masanko took the mound for the Lady Bears, struggling in the inning, but got some big help on the defensive end from her infielders Olivia Creamer and Katelyn Meyer, Creamer caught a fly ball and quickly made the decision to pass the ball to Meyer for the quick double play. This helped Mansanko to get out of the inning with one strikeout.
The bats started to come alive for the Lady Bears in the 2nd inning with a couple singles by Emma Morris, Sarah Dziwulski and Riley Condon but were not able to score any runs leaving three runners on. Mansanko came back out determined to work her counts and throw various pitches at the Lady Mustangs and sat down the five, six and seven batter just as quickly as they got up there.
Going into the top of the 4th inning nothing had changed on the scoreboard. Both teams were playing very good defense, and only two errors had happened so far in the game. The bottom of the 4th is where all that changed. Soraya Hernandez started the charge by hitting a line drive single to center field, followed by Wiebenga. Two runners on a no outs the Lady Bears knew a bunt was coming soon and prepared themselves, the next batter showed bunt and Emily Sikes came up to make a spectacular diving catch to hold the runners at first and second. Alexis Fraiser came up to the plate and on the first pitch hit a long ball to right field scoring both Hernandez and Wiebenga. By the end of the inning another run had scored and the Lady Mustangs had a commanding lead.
After that inning, the Lady Mustangs didn’t produce any more hits for the game and the Lady Bears seemed to have just gone on a hitting spree, scoring 2 more runs in the bottom of the 5th off of the home run by Wiebenga.
Bartram Trail’s next game will be back at their home field against the Menendez Falcons (2-15) on Monday the 15th and Manadain will look to continue their win streak and make it seven in a row as they take on Bolles (4-14) on Wednesday the 24th.
