Upper Dauphin 8, East Juniata 1
COCOLAMUS — East Juniata hung around as best it could but ultimately failed to overcome its mistakes in its 8-1 loss to Upper Dauphin in softball action on Tuesday.

The Tigers had some trouble early on in the game as Jana Straight led off with a first pitch double to left field. Straight then moved over to third on a passed ball.

Maddin Grow then on a 2-2 pitch grounded to shortstop Macy Buskey but her throw pushed first baseman Abby Warner off the bag which allowed Grow to reach first while Straight came in for the score.

Offensively, East Juniata struggled against Upper Dauphin pitcher Faith Anderson who appeared as though as being unhittable through the first three innings where the only take that the Tigers had gotten on base was by Warner who had drawn a walk.

But eventually East Juniata got the bats going in the bottom half of the fourth inning where the Tigers got their first three hits of the game going back-to-back-to-back singles from Maddie Snyder, Brenna Watts and Ryley Dressler. The Dressler single helped score Snyder to even the game at one apiece.

However, a missed opportunity came during the same inning as a mishap between coach and baserunner occurred as Marley Wilson flew out to right field but Kennedy Seiger-Lewis was already down to home plate and was tagged by the catcher to complete the double play and got the Trojans out of the inning.

The Tigers had another major opportunity to take command of the game in the bottom half of the fifth where they had the bases loaded and only one out. Snyder came to the plate and smacked the ball that landed near the catcher Hayley Baker who turned it into a 2-3-2 double play to end the inning.

Upper Dauphin then turned that momentum into offense as during the top of the sixth where the Trojans’ first three batters had reached on an error by the East Juniata defense.

Fallon McFadden and Baker went back-to-back with sacrifice flies to center, scoring both Jordyn Miller and Anderson to make it a 3-1 lead. Lilli Deibler then smacked a single to left that brought home Cayden Warfield to extend the lead to 4-1.

The Trojans didn’t stop there as they added four more runs in the following inning with half of those runs were off of bunt singles.

Overall the Tigers committed six errors for the day.

Watts went all seven innings with six strikeouts and a walk.

East Juniata (0-1) hosts St. Joe’s on Thursday.