Baker notches win over Freeport in district opener

FREEPORT — Even if the Freeport softball team was operating at full strength, beating Baker wouldn’t have been an easy task. That task was considerably more difficult after the Bulldogs were missing one of their best players.

The Bulldogs had to raid the junior varsity team for healthy bodies on Thursday against the Gators and couldn’t muster enough firepower, as Baker opened its District 1-2A schedule with a 7-2 win.

The Gators used a five-run fourth inning to separate themselves after a tightly-contested first half of the game.

Freeport (0-6, 0-3 in District 1-2A) had to call freshman JV pitcher Rani Simmons into action due to a back injury to Northwest Florida State College-bound pitcher Jordan Howell, who could miss up to two weeks. Simmons answered the call admirably but couldn’t match Baker hurler Lauren Griffith, who earned the win after going five innings and allowing just one hit.

The Gators (4-1, 1-0) were ahead 1-0 in the fourth but broke the game open on a three-run double by Mollie Royal that missed being a grand slam by a couple feet. Up to that point, Baker coach John Carlisle wasn’t thrilled with how his team had played.

“Early in the game we made some mistakes defensively,” Carlisle said. “We had to make some adjustments at the plate and we didn’t make them early on. Then we started hitting the ball pretty well and got back into our element.”

Some shaky Freeport fielding led to five unearned runs for Baker in the decisive fourth inning. Other than that, the Bulldogs held their own despite being without arguably their best player.

Simmons pitched a complete game and gave up just two earned runs while striking out three. Alyssa Duross helped out at the plate with an RBI single in the sixth.

“I was actually pretty happy with the way we played,” Freeport coach Charles Trotman said. “We decided the best scenario would be to pull Rani up from JV and let her pitch so we wouldn’t have to move our defense around.”