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Basalt High softball beats visiting Meeker in a key battle of top-10 teams, 9-6

Basalt's Sequoia Kellogg safely reaches first base against Meeker on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2018. (Photo by Austin Colbert).
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times

The schedule hasn’t been overly challenging for the Basalt High School softball team early on this fall, so getting to face one of the stronger teams in the state came with a bit of uncertainty.

This showed early against Meeker, ranked No. 10 in Class 3A by CHSAANow.com, when the teams faced off Tuesday afternoon in Basalt’s home opener, an eventual 9-6 win for the No. 8-ranked Longhorns on the BHS diamond.

“We haven’t seen as strong of pitching until now,” BHS first-year coach David Miller said. “When you are used to hitting slow pitchers, and then you come up against faster pitchers, it was throwing them. It took them a little while to find a groove.”



Eventually the bats came alive for Basalt, which used two big middle innings to come away on top in a battle of top-10 teams. Sophomore Maya Lindgren, who attends Roaring Fork High School, pitched all seven innings for the Longhorns.

She allowed seven hits while striking out nine with only two walks. Meeker used three different pitchers.




“That was a little scary at the end, for sure. But I came through and I was very proud of my defense for backing me up in the end,” Lindgren said. “With those bigger hitters it’s a little scary because they just smash everything. So that was kind of nervous for me as a pitcher, but when I get in the box as a hitter I was confident.”

Meeker took a 2-0 lead in the first inning and held onto that same lead until the bottom of the fourth inning, when Basalt’s offense woke up. It started with a triple from Sequoia Kellogg that scored Grace Schrock, and from there the floodgates opened with BHS scoring five runs that frame.

Meeker answered with a three-run top of the fifth to tie the game at 5-5, which included a solo home run by Tori Lasker. No reason to fret, as Basalt’s offense continued to produce by pushing four more runs across the plate in the bottom of the fifth to retake a 9-5 lead.

After a scoreless sixth, Meeker had the bases loaded in the seventh but only managed to score one run before a Lindgren strikeout ended the game.

“Maya, she pitched great and hung in there. Battled the whole game,” Miller said. “This is a real big win for us. This is a really good team. We weren’t sure how we would do against a really good team, so I’m proud of the girls.”

Kellogg led BHS with three hits, while four different players had four runs. Zoe Vozick had a team-high two RBI.

Meeker fell to 5-4 overall and 4-1 in league play. Basalt improved to 7-0 and 4-0 in league play. The Longhorns will continue on with the theme of tougher competition this weekend, when they play a home triangular with No. 5 Faith Christian and a usually strong Cedaredge team. BHS will play Faith at 10 a.m. Saturday morning in Basalt, and play Cedaredge around 2 p.m. after the Bruins play the Eagles.

“I just think we work really well together as people,” Lindgren said of the team’s early success. “That helps a lot with us. We are a very social team and we talk to each other, so I think that really helps us play better together.”

ASPEN HIGH SOFTBALL SHUTDOWN BY CEDAREDGE

The Aspen High School softball team lost 27-0 Tuesday at Cedaredge. The Skiers, now 0-3, are set to host Montezuma-Cortez on Saturday in Aspen. Cedaredge will compete Saturday in a triangular with host Basalt and Faith Christian.

BASALT VOLLEYBALL FALLS IN THREE SETS TO GRAND VALLEY

The Basalt High School volleyball team lost 3-0 at Grand Valley on Tuesday. Set scores were 25-17, 25-13 and 25-15. BHS, now 2-5 overall, will play Thursday evening at Aspen (1-0) in the Skiers’ home opener. Aspen’s only match this season was a 3-0 sweep of host Roaring Fork last Thursday.

acolbert@aspentimes.com