Having exercising their teamwork skills the previous night dispatching a rodent visitor to the cabin where the team stayed, Coach Amy Macias and the Derby Invasion softball team prepared for a doubleheader with Tyro Christian.   As there was rain in the area the previous night the team didn’t find out until a couple hours before game time that the field in Coffeyville was dry enough to play.

Continuing the new Invasion tradition of fast starts, Derby jumped ahead in the top of the first of game one, 2-0 on Renae Bergen’s lead off single scoring on a double by Kay Denton who then came across the plate on a single by Elizabeth Macias.

With Elizabeth on the mound,   the Invasion defense held Tyro scoreless for the first two innings and then increased their lead to 3-0 in the third inning on a single by Kay and an RBI single off the bat of Abby Shinkle.   Tyro prevented a fourth run from scoring when Abby was thrown out at the plate after a single by Melody Bloyer.

In the bottom of the third, Tyro batters put together a string of four hits leading off the inning including a home run by their cleanup hitter resulting in four runs and a Tyro 4-3 lead.   With Tyro then loading the bases and threatening to break the game open, Elizabeth struck out one batter for the second out and then cleanly fielded a ground ball back to the box and threw to Kay for the third out.

Derby never threatened in the last two innings and Tyro added an insurance run in the fourth to cement a 5-3 win and take the front end of the double header.

Game Two

Playing four games over the course of two days while on the road is hard on any team, and it looked like too much for the Derby women as they went down in order in the first three innings of game two.   The hometown Tyro team hardly missed a beat as they scored five runs in the 3^rd and one in the 4^th to take what seemed to be an insurmountable 6-0 lead.  

But in the tradition of Derby Invasion sports, the team scored four runs with back to back hits by Renae and Jewels Wampler followed by Kay getting hit by a pitch, a single by Elizabeth, and then after two outs Melody Bloyer singled to bring across the fourth run scored by Elizabeth.   Now down 6-4, Derby had new energy and new hope for a notch in the win column.

Inspired by the offense, the defense shut down Tyro in the bottom of the fourth in order and eagerly went to the bat rack to pick up where they left off the previous inning.   Leading off the fifth inning, Abby doubled to right center narrowly beating the tag at second.   With one out, Jewels singled scoring Abby and making the score 6-5.   Kay then crushed an 0-1 pitch for a double, scoring Jewels and tying the score at six.   Elizabeth then singled sending Kay to third and then ended up on second after a stolen base.   With two outs Kerrie Barger singled scoring Kay for the go ahead run and a 7-6 lead.   The fourth and final run of the inning was scored on a nifty bit of base running by Elizabeth when she challenged the Tyro catcher by taking a huge lead after the pitch – the catcher charged up the third base line toward Elizabeth and when the she threw the ball to third, Elizabeth dashed past the catcher to the unattended home plate for a Derby 8-6 lead.