Big first inning sparks Burroughs softball past Glendale
GLENDALE — Doug Nicol has seen his share of hard-hit balls around the diamond.
On Tuesday, the Burroughs High softball coach saw another one that he likely won’t soon forget that helped pave the way for a big first inning for the Indians.
Danielle Ryan hit a two-run inside-the-park home run high off the 40-foot chain-linked fence at Glendale High to spark visiting Burroughs to a convincing 16-3 victory against Glendale in a Pacific League game called after five innings because of the 10-run mercy rule.
“It’s without question one of the hardest balls I’ve ever seen hit,” said Nicol, whose team improved to 14-4-1, 6-1 in league and is a game behind first-place Burbank (7-0 in league). “It’s unbelievable.
“That’s a very tall fence and I don’t know if it’s possible to even hit one over it. That was quite a shot.”
Burroughs scored nine runs in the opening inning en route to completing the two-game season series sweep of Glendale (11-5, 3-4). Burroughs, ranked eighth in the latest CIF Southern Section Division III poll, posted an 11-1 home win against Glendale on April 1 at Olive Park.
Ryan, the designated player, gave the Indians a 2-0 lead with a shot that missed clearing the fence by about five feet.
“I hit the ball and I wasn’t looking to see where it was going to go,” Ryan said. “I just knew I had to run the bases quickly.
“It’s probably one of the hardest hit balls by me. We were just trying to start off fast and get ahead. It was big to get a lot of runs early on and it helped us the rest of the way.”
Burroughs sent 13 batters to the plate in the first inning. The Indians batted through their order three times before Glendale’s No. 9 hitter came to the plate for the first time in the third. Ryan capped the first-inning scoring with an RBI single.
Glendale couldn’t recover from the avalanche of hits put up by Burroughs in the first.
“We just didn’t compete to the best of our ability,” Glendale first-year Coach Greg Martin said. “We just have to go back out there and try to stay positive.
“We basically have to go back to the drawing board. We have to get back to playing the way we did at the start of the season.”
Glendale trimmed the deficit to 9-1 in its half of the first on a run-scoring single by Jordan Lousararian.
Tori Talavera had a two-run double in the second to extend Burroughs’ advantage to 11-1.
The Indians received four hits from Aimee Rodriguez and two hits apiece from Ryan, Sidney Ortega and Delaney Nicol.
Lousararian collected a pair of hits for Glendale.
Burroughs and Glendale will next compete in league games against their cross-town rivals. Burroughs will meet Burbank at 6 p.m. Thursday at Olive park. Glendale will face Hoover on the road at 3:30 p.m. Friday.
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Follow Charles Rich on Twitter: @TCNCharlesRich .