Lady Indians slide past Alameda

MONTROSE —  The Lady Indians’ softball team celebrated their first win on their new field Saturday with a dramatic finish.

With two of the top pitchers in the state, Lady Indians’ Tisha Vickroy and Alameda Lady Pirates’ Allysia Cisneros, battling it out on the mound MHS’s bats got hot in the bottom of the seventh to score the game’s lone run.

Adrian Coggins led off the inning with a double, two batter later Courtney Olsen connected on an RBI triple to drive in Coggins for the game-winning run and give Montrose a 1-0 victory.

"It was awesome, I have never even hit a triple in a varsity game before," Olsen said.

The Lady Indians were also playing without their head coach, Joe Bollinger, who was away at a wedding. However, Montrose was unfazed under the helm of assistant coach Mark Bollinger.

"We weren't nervous at all. It helps having him here, but we have great support from all the coaches," Olsen said.

Even though Mark Bollinger isn’t the regular head coach in Montrose's varsity huddle, he was was no stranger to the Lady Pirates' team.

When Bollinger was coaching at Golden he faced Alameda's head coach Cindy Guthals regularly when she was  at Pomona. Bollinger also tried to recruit Cisneros when he was coaching club softball on the Front Range.

"Most of our games were like this one," the coach said. "Today our girls were the ones that were able to do it and I was really proud of them."

However, in Saturday’s game the Lady Indians struggled early against Cisneros. The Lady Pirates' pitcher struck out seven of Montrose’s first eight batters.

"She is definitely one of the top pitchers in the 4A, but our girls kept making adjustments as the game went along," Bollinger said.

Vickroy and Montrose's defense were just as dominant and got stronger as the game went along. The Lady Indians forced Alameda to go three-and-out in the final three innings.

Montrose also got out of a jam in the second quarter after Alameda loaded the bases, but the Lady Indians got the next three batters out. 

"I thought the girls just went out there and played great softball. You won't see better than that," the coach said.

Vickroy earned her second win of the season after allowing two hits and striking out six batters.

The Lady Indians' squad also enjoyed playing on their new softball field, which is nestled by the baseball, football and soccer field on Montrose High campus.

"It's a really nice field and it’s good to have it here at the high school," Olsen said. 

Montrose improved to 2-0 on the season and will travel to Palisade Tuesday.  to face the Lady Bulldogs.