BY NATE KOTISSO | STAFF WRITER
McAllen Memorial coach Audra Benavidez admits Friday’s game against McAllen High was a brand-new experience.
“For a game to go that late and that many runs put up by both teams, no, I’ve never been a part of anything like that before,” Benavidez said.
On Friday, the Mustangs and Bulldogs met as the second and fourth seeds in District 30-6A. The teams combined for 41 runs on 38 hits and 11 errors in a game that somehow took up just seven innings. The Mustangs prevailed 21-20.
“That’s a hard game to lose and to win,” Benavidez said. “Of course, we’re going to do our best to win, but the McHi pitcher did a great job, too. You fight so hard and for so long, and we just came out on the winning side this time.”
Perhaps more surprising was that both starting pitchers, Naysa Rios of McHi and Kayla Dow of McAllen Memorial, started and ended as each team’s only pitchers of the night.
McAllen High (6-14, 4-4) held an 8-1 lead through the first inning and a half, but Memorial chipped away at the deficit and tied the score at 8 after four. The Bulldogs responded with five runs in the fifth and led 15-11 through five and a half frames, but the Mustangs stormed back with a nine-run sixth to take their first lead of the game at 20-15.
The Bulldogs scored five in the seventh off Dow to the game at 20, but Dow came through for the Mustangs (13-13, 7-2) in the last of the seventh.
Dow singled in Alexis Walden from third with her fifth hit of the night, ending the three-and-a-half-hour marathon.
“We tell them that every single pitch, out and inning is important, and that’s why we have to fight until the end,” Benavidez said. “They did a great job of keeping their composure and fighting till the end.”