By Chuck Reherman
Sports Editor
The story of Yukon’s district season has been “one big inning.”
It happened to the Millerettes again Monday night.
Edmond Deer Creek scored six runs in the fourth inning to rally from a 4-2 deficit and hand the Millerettes an 8-2 District 6A-2 loss on the Millerettes’ home field.
The loss gave the Millerettes a split with the Lady Antlers (Yukon won 2-0 in the first meeting) and basically sealed fourth place in the district race. YHS, 11-14 overall, is 7-5 in the district, two games behind Deer Creek in third with a 9-4 record. The Millerettes will head to the Mustang regional. The Lady Broncos are 11-1 in 6A-1 with a pair of games with US Grant remaining.
The Millerettes had rallied from a 2-0 deficit with four runs in the third inning to take a 4-2 lead. But, that lead didn’t last long as Deer Creek answered with six runs in the top of the fourth and turned away any attempt by the Millerettes at a rally the rest of the way.
“Offensively, we saw some good things, we had some really hard hit balls that went right to them,” Millerette head coach Katy Hoke said. “On the flip side of that, they had a whole bunch of flares that were hit in the holes. Some little ‘tweeners that helped them get on and move runners.
“Unfortunately on offense it just wasn’t our night,” she said. “We had some errors that really cost us in that big inning. We thought the momentum was going to swing our way after we took the lead, but a couple of errors gave it back to them. We had a couple of balls that we didn’t make plays on and we have to take advantage of those when we have the opportunity.
“We just have to keep working on it. We still have the regionals in front of us and we need to get those things corrected before then.”
Trailing 2-0 in the bottom of the third, the Millerettes came up with the key hits, including a two-run scoring double from Kinsleigh Thomas that broke a 2-2 tie and gave YHS a 4-2 lead.
Ariah Mitchell started the rally with a one out single and scored on a double from Taryn Blazevich. Jaycee McKee’s bases loaded single scored Blazevich to tie the game 2-2.
Thomas followed with her double that drove in two runs and gave YHS a 4-2 lead. Deer Creek got out of the inning when the Millerettes hit into a double play.
Deer Creek tied the game 4-4 on a two-run scoring double from Cayman Casey and used an RBI single from Rylee Houska to take a 5-4 lead.
Maddie Oakley’s single and a Millerette error led to three runs and the 8-4 lead.
The Millerettes got only two more runners on base the rest of the way.
“We were attacking the ball and hitting the ball tonight, they were just going right at someone,” Hoke said. “The difference in this game from the first meeting is we held them to two hits in that first game and they had 11 in this one.
The Millerettes play in the Chickasha beginning Friday. Yukon plays Bridge Creek at 11:30 a.m. Friday at the Chickasha Middle School field and plays Edmond Santa Fe at 4 p.m. at the high school.
On Saturday, the Millerettes play Weatherford at 10:30 a.m. and Altus at 1:30 p.m.
