Williamsburg 8th-grader Carly Rich relieves, redeems in softball split with Mount Vernon

WILLIAMSBURG — The pitching staff for the Williamsburg High School softball team consists of three branches of the same family tree.

“We’ve all got a great relationship,” said eighth-grader Carly Rich. “If somebody struggles, the other one can come in and pick her up.”

Monday night, it was Rich, the youngest sprout, who was the quicker pick-her-upper.

Rich came on in relief, kept Williamsburg in the game, added a three-run home run — the first of her career — and sparked the Class 3A second-ranked Raiders to a 9-5 comeback triumph in the first game of a Wamac Conference softball doubleheader at Jim Turner Field.

No. 3 Mount Vernon won the nightcap, 10-3.

With Williamsburg’s Peyton Driscoll and Mount Vernon’s Jenna Sprague in the circle to start, you’d assume the opener would be a pitchers’ duel. It was anything but.

Driscoll, who pitched the Raiders to the 3A state final last year, surrendered eight walks and threw 80 pitches in 1 2/3 innings before being lifted for Rich. Mount Vernon led 4-0 before Williamsburg (10-2, 7-1 Wamac) rallied.

“We didn’t start out very strong,” Rich said. “I think after we started getting some base hits, we got fired up.”

Rich knotted the game with a three-run homer in the bottom of the fourth — “I was so nervous. We needed a hit to get the team fired up,” she said — but Mount Vernon (8-2, 5-1) reclaimed the lead, 5-4, on Lauren Ryan’s RBI single in the top of the fifth.

Williamsburg’s winning rally started with one out in the bottom of the sixth with a hit batsman and a walk. Olivia Stratton’s RBI single tied the game, Megan Lamparek’s two-run bloop double put the Raiders in front, then singles by Rylee Vercande and Shannon Finn provided insurance.

Finn was 4-for-4 in the opener.

Now, about that family tree, the short version: Driscoll’s dad and Rich’s mom are siblings, and the mothers of Driscoll and Game 2 starter Jayden Kennebeck are sisters.

After Williamsburg’s Elle Ridgeway hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the first, Mount Vernon owned the rest of the nightcap.

Elsa Appleton, Lily See and Maia Bentley had RBI hits in a three-run second inning that put the Mustangs in front, 4-2, then they broke it open with three runs in the fifth.

Nadia Telecky capped it with a two-run homer in the seventh.

WILLIAMSBURG 9-3, MOUNT VERNON 5-10

At Williamsburg

Game 1

Mount Vernon 210 110 0 — 5 9 0

Williamsburg 000 405 x — 9 10 0

Jenna Sprague and Lauren Swartzendruber. Peyton Driscoll, Carly Rich (2) and Carly Campbell. W — Rich (3-1). L — Sprague (4-2). HR — W: Rich (1).

Game 2

Mount Vernon 130 103 2 — 10 12 2

Williamsburg 200 001 0 — 3 9 1

Addison Gookin, Jenna Sprague (5) and Kenna Rollinger. Jayden Kennebeck, Peyton Driscoll (3), Kennebeck (7) and Carly Campbell. W — Gookin (4-0). L — Kennebeck (2-1). SV — Sprague (2). HR — MV: Nadia Telecky (1), W: Elle Ridgeway (6).

Comments: jeff.linder@thegazette.com