Hermitage wins district title over Weaubleau

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Wheatland, MO – Less than 24 hours after beating the district host Wheatland in extra innings, the Hermitage Lady Hornets finished the job by beating Weaubleau 11-3 to claim the Class 1, District 4 championship on Saturday.

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The Hermitage offense took advantage of being the away team on the scoreboard in the early innings.

They scored two runs in each of the first two innings, quickly mounting a 6-1 lead over the Weaubleau Lady Tigers.

“For some reason, we’ve been kind of lucky here lately,” said Hermitage coach Shane Salmon.  “If we’re the visiting team, we like to get out and score first.  When we do that a lot of the time, we have a little bit of success.”

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After the second inning, Weaubleau made a pitching change to try to stop the bleeding.  The rest of the fielders didn’t do much to help the pitchers, as the Weaubleau defense committed eight errors in the game.

“That has kind of been our advantage I think throughout the entire season, is just the speed difference between the two [pitchers],” said Weaubleau coach Katie Lorenz.  “We may not have been making some of the plays that we should have been, but just decided to switch it up.”

By the middle of the fourth inning, Hermitage had taken a 10-1 lead over the Lady Tigers.  All Hermitage pitcher Sheridan Corum had to do at that point was keep the Weaubleau hitters at bay.

She did just that.  Corum allowed three runs on seven hits and a walk with three strikeouts over seven innings pitched.  She also contributed at the plate, going 2-4 with three RBI.

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“She did an awesome job,” Salmon said of his pitcher.  “She had several strikeouts and moved the ball well… Weaubleau’s got a lot of really good hitters and she kept most of them off balance.  They didn’t get a lot of good square contact today.  They kind of popped some up and hit some ground balls to us.  And we made the plays.”

Last year, Hermitage and Weaubleau both made it to their district title games, just in different districts.  Weableau won their district a year ago with a shut out win over Walnut Grove, while Hermitage fell to Wheatland at home last year.

This year, the two Polk County League rivals were assigned to the same district.  This district title game was the fourth time these two teams squared off this season.  Hermitage won the matchup on Aug. 30 7-6.  Weaubleau won the next two games on Sept. 21 and 24.

Hermitage came out on top in the series finale on Saturday.

“We showed up and we played with a lot of confidence today against a very good team.  Weaubleau has beaten us twice earlier in the year,” said Salmon.  “They did their job.  It was a lot of fun.  That’s what we talked about before the game; just go out and have fun.”

Hermitage (16-8) will face off against Walnut Grove (12-14) in their Class 1 sectional matchup on Wednesday, Oct. 12.

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