NORTON SHORES — Reeths-Puffer knew who to turn to after Mona Shores ripped off three first-inning runs in last Thursday’s pre-district game - the same pitcher that’s led them all year, sophomore Lainey McDaniel.
McDaniel came in from right field to take the circle to start the second inning and bedeviled the Sailors every pitch from there, dazzling for six perfect innings to lead the Rockets to a 10-3 victory. The win advanced R-P to the district semifinals Saturday at Grand Haven, where the Rockets will face Muskegon before a potential matchup with the host Buccaneers, a consistent heavyweight program.
Coach Sarah Bayle said there was never any panic from her team after Shores got the early jump with a few line drives and grabbed a 3-0 lead.
“We learned from our mistakes last year,” Bayle said, referring to the Rockets’ 2023 district defeat to Shores. “We just talked. They had a really good demeanor, and so did the coaches. We just looked at them and we said, ‘Hey, I love what you’re doing right now. You have a good mindset. It’s all over your face; you believe it. We’re going to be fine.’”
McDaniel certainly inspires that level of confidence; Bayle said in O-K Green Conference games, the sophomore’s earned run average was around 0.20, and her full-season ERA isn’t much higher. Shores was off balance at the plate from the moment she stepped into the circle.
“I was just feeling loose,” McDaniel said. “I was feeling ready to go...I’ve gotten good sleep and made sure I stayed ready in case my team needed me.”
Thirteen of the 18 outs McDaniel recorded were by strikeout, and the Sailors didn’t hit the ball hard off her once.
It took until the third inning for R-P to time up Mona Shores’ pitching, but once it did, the results were impressive. The Rockets’ last three hitters in the batting order all singled in succession to lead off the inning, and the hit parade continued from there. Brook Buchan, Kaylee Jones and McDaniel all had RBI singles, and the team scored six runs in all. R-P kept up the heat in the fourth, scoring twice more, including a Jones home run to left center field.
“I think we had a lot of confidence that we just needed to time up the pitcher and we’d be fine,” McDaniel said. “We were just working with the pitches we were given.”
Bayle said the adjustment period came in part from the difference in speed between Shores and Zeeland West star Alexa Brott, who limited the Rockets in a doubleheader split between the teams last week.
R-P is now at the doorstep of a postseason run it’s been eyeing all season. The Rockets have blown past program records in several categories, most notably wins and runs scored, but it’s a district trophy they feel would mark true validation for their program.
“I think it will show people who maybe still have some doubts about us that we are capable,” Bayle said. “I think it will prove to the girls everything we’ve been believing all year long, that we are capable of doing some pretty great things. There’s gonna be a lot of tears if that happens, happy tears, because they have worked so hard for it.”
