Hays Post
LIBERAL - The Hays High softball team scored 11 runs in the top of the fifth inning on their way to a 14-1 win over the Liberal Redskins Thursday in Liberal.
The win secures the Western Athletic Conference title for a second straight year for the Indians.
Hays scored the first run of the game on a Riley Dreher RBI single that scored Dani Willeford.
Liberal got a run back in the bottom of the first tying the game at one, but it was a short-lived tie. Hays got the run back on an error in the second for a 2-1 lead. Two batters later Haley Rees doubled to give Hays a 2-1 lead. A lead they never gave up.
A Liberal error opened Hays’ 11-run fifth. Hays then scored on a pair of Dreher RBI triples and Avery Solida singles. The Indians also got RBI base hits from Rees and Aubree Thomas and they also scored on a pair of error in the inning.
Willeford, Dreher, Solda, Rees and Thomas all drove in two runs each. Dreher, Solida, Lakyn Zimmerman and Thomas each collected three hits.
Thomas earned the win. She allowed one unearned run on three hits with 10 strikeouts in five innings.
The Indians have won eight of their last 10 and are 15-7.