Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Silverado closes in on crown

Silverado's LaMeka Anderson wasn't quite as dominating this time around, but she still was more than good enough Thursday to lead the Skyhawks to the brink of the Southern AAA Sunset Division title.

Anderson, who struck out 18 hitters in blanking Durango earlier this month, settled for 11 while leading Silverado to a 4-1 victory over the Trailblazers at the Skyhawks' diamond. The triumph lifted Silverado to 10-0 in divisional play, good for a three-game lead with four contests remaining. The Skyhawks stand 24-5 overall.

With the loss, Durango fell to 7-3 in the division and 13-6 overall. Anderson improved to 20-2 for the season, while Sandy Morgan (12-6) took the loss for the Trailblazers.

"We looked at this as the divisional championship game," Silverado coach Chuck Pope said. "I know we still have four games to play and they only have three losses, but now we have the tie-breaker since we've beaten them twice. Their kids are battlers, and Sandy threw a wonderful game, too.

"Durango did a great job of preparing for us. Meka threw a lot of rise balls last game, and today they laid off of them. But we played good Silverado softball today. It had all the makings of a division championship game."

Silverado opened the scoring with a run in the second on a suicide squeeze play, then put the clamps on the game with three more in the third. Following two Durango errors, Shana Singer singled in one run before Kelley Hoorn knocked in two with a base hit to right for a 4-0 lead.

Durango put five runners in scoring position before breaking through against Anderson in the sixth with an unearned tally. However, the junior bore down and squelched any thoughts of a Trailblazer rally by striking out the final four hitters of the game.

"She's special," said Pope. "She gets on the mound and she's so competitive -- she just refuses to get beat. There were situations today when we just didn't do well defensively, and she rose to the occasion with runners on third.

"As a coach you always want that one player, that horse. Well, we have our own little horse in Meka."

Silverado can clinch at least a tie for the Sunset Division crown with a victory today against Bishop Gorman. The teams play a 3 p.m. game at Jaycee Park.

archive