Indian River wins semifinal rematch vs. Delmarva Christian 4-1

Windblown waves of dirt coming across the Indian River infield conjured up images of barren drylands, which unfortunately for Delmarva Christian was exactly how IR senior Megan Daisey wanted to keep things.

Daisey registered 16 strikeouts in IR’s 4-1 season-opening win against Delmarva Christian, a rematch of last year’s epic semifinal that IR won 2-1. Her counterpart Kylie McCabe was making just her second varsity appearance, and after cruising through the first two innings, she ran into some trouble in the third.

“We had an inning where we had bases loaded; we could have had a lot worse happen to us, but we came out of that giving up just two runs,” Royals coach Rachel Fetterman said.

“That was a huge situation,” senior Lily Hutt said. “We’ve been practicing that scenario, and for a second game, it’s huge to be able to get out of that situation.”

Daisey, however, cut off the Royals’ momentum by striking out the side in the top half of the fourth before IR doubled its lead in the bottom half. Delmarva Christian settled back down on defense and Hutt took over on the mound to keep the home team off the board for the remainder of the game, but they needed the offense to break through.

The Royals were down to their final three outs. Hutt led off the inning, finally cracking McCabe’s code.

“The first strike that she threw me at I was like, OK, but I already struck out the bat before, so I'm not sure I can do it again,” Hutt said, “It's my time and I saw the pitch, and I said to myself, this is my pitch. I'm ready. It came off of the bat and I was like, yep.”

With a blast that sliced through the mid-March Dagsboro dust storm and landed well beyond the fence, the Royals were on the board. Daisey shrugged off the home run to collect strike-outs No. 15 and 16 before getting the third and final out of the seventh.

The loss drops Delmarva Christian to 0-2 after they dropped their season opener to Caesar Rodney March 18, but leadership is optimistic.

“I think we’ve had some tough competition,” Hutt said “It was good to start out the season like this; it’s preparing us for the whole season. We lost our first two games, but I think we’re playing good softball and we’re learning good things.”

“This isn’t necessarily a loss for us,” Fetterman said, “We are rebuilding, so there was a lot of positives that happened, especially from some of our younger players.”

Delmarva Christian welcomes Odessa at 4:15 p.m., Friday, March 22.