Wind favors Moses Lake in sweep

Both sides had to play in the wind, but Moses Lake played right at home, defeating Kennewick in both games.

The Moses Lake softball team put a gap between them and fourth place Kennewick in the Big Nine with a doubleheader sweep on Tuesday at Larson Field. With wind whipping to right field, the Chiefs pulled off a 12-2 victory in game one and a 7-4 win in game two.

Heather Coulter dominated the mound, while Jayme Albrandt commanded the batters box, finishing the doubleheader batting 4-for-8 with a home run and five RBIs.

"It helped motivate us with Jayme's first home run over the fence," Moses Lake head coach Alan Coulter said.

In the bottom of the first inning in the second game, Albrandt faced Kennewick pitcher Casey Lamear with two outs and a runner on and belted a deep fly ball to right-center field, clearing the fence easily to put Moses Lake on the board first.

Albrandt added another RBI in the bottom of the third with a single to center field, scoring Tracy Reed from second base.

From the mound, Coulter allowed two runs on three hits and struck out nine batters in five innings pitched. Game two, Coulter showed signs of fatigue, allowing four runs on nine hits and only four strike outs in the game.

"She was getting tired and had thrown over 90 pitches, but we had some errors that cost us," Alan Coulter said.

Kennewick came into the game in fourth place and a game behind Moses Lake for third place in the Big Nine softball standings. In the first inning of game one, looked to overtake the Chiefs by jumping to a 2-0 lead off a two-run single by Ashley Felch.

"They came out and scored first and it didn't seem to bother us," Alan Coulter said. "We had motivational comment from their bench and it helped us."

Coulter allowed those only runs in the inning and struck out the last two batters of the inning.

Albrandt tied the game up in the bottom of the first with a two-run single of her own and Shalayne Hunter followed with an RBI triple to the left field wall.

Moses Lake added three runs in the bottom of the second, before the game was suspended due to high winds. The Chiefs tagged on seven more runs over the course of three innings with Lauren Sutton's two-run double in the bottom of the fifth to cap off the 12-2 victory.

Game two started with a bang as Albrandt drove a home run to opposite field with Ashley Haight standing on first. The Chiefs added five more runs in the bottom of the third, with Albrandt picking up her third RBI of the game, Shelly McCuistion walking in a run and Bailey Millican driving in the last run with a single to center field.

Heather Coulter started to fade on the mound, giving up two singles to start the fourth inning and a one out, RBI double to Kennewick's Ashley DesCamp and a two-run double to Kori Cannon.

Kennewick scored one last run in the top of the fifth inning on an error committed by the second baseman. Moses Lake held strong the last two innings and held on for the doubleheader sweep.

With the win, the Chiefs improved to 10-4 on the season and put Kennewick at 9-7, opening the door to Eisenhower to take fourth place in the Big Nine.

Moses Lake's season started by being swept and shut out by Pasco, but since then, the Chiefs have put together a 10-2 record and scored 71 runs, averaging 5.92 runs per game.

"Consistency, everyone is contributing," Alan Coulter said about the turnaround.