By her own estimation, Wednesday was a bit of an off day on the mound for Riverton ace Kaysen Korth. Her spins weren’t consistent and she struggled at times dealing with the narrow strike zone.
A lesser experienced pitcher might’ve let frustration creep in, but not Korth. She went 11-1 on the mound a year ago and knows how to ride the wave of emotions.
“We worked with that we had,” said Korth.
The reality is that even on an off day when Korth walked three batters and hit two more — unlucky for Bingham’s Shelbee Jones as she got plunked twice — she still made things very difficult for rival Bingham by only allowing five hits and striking out five, and with the run support Riverton’s offense provided Korth’s off day was plenty good enough.
Riverton’s bats overcame a slow start, eventually torching Bingham to the tune of 12 runs and 16 hits as it rolled to the 12-4 victory in the battle of the last two undefeated teams in 6A.
“I think I had an off day. I think there’s a lot of things I could’ve done better, but on my off day I’m pretty glad that it showed up like that instead of getting destroyed,” said Korth.
Trailing 2-0 after three innings, Riverton’s bats exploded with a seven spot in the fourth inning and then three more runs in the fifth.
Riverton brought 11 batters to the plate in the fourth, with Jolie Mayfield leading things off with a two-strike single and then adding an RBI double later in the inning.
The Silverwolves had chances to open things up the first three innings after putting a runner in scoring position each inning, but failed to deliver the big hit.
Riverton coach Katelyn Elliott said she’s always challenging her players to keep attacking amid adversity and that’s what happened coming out of the fourth inning. The rally started with three straight singles by Mayfield, Alexis Shaver and Baylee Martinez, and then Riverton kept piling things on with an aggressive mentality.
“We were executing the little things, bunts, taking balls in the dirt, little things we’ve been working on and we just kept putting the pressure on them,” said Elliott. “Sometimes we focus on the hits, and there’s so many other areas of the game you can put pressure on a team and we talk a lot about that. Being gritty and keep attacking, and sometimes they don’t go your way until about the fourth inning.”
Elliott said a change in approach at the plate for her hitters helped too.
“If he’s pinching the zone for their pitcher just as much as our pitcher, we as hitters need to take advantage of it,” said Elliott.
Fourteen of Riverton’s 16 hits came after the third inning.
“One hit just led to another and another and just getting pumped for all of them,” said Korth.
The senior Weber State commit helped her cause at the plate as well going 2 for 5, one of six Riverton batters to get multiple hits. All nine players in the lineup recorded a hit, and No. 9 hitter Kylie Carrell went 3 for 3 with a double and two RBIs.
“The depth on this team is unreal,” said Elliott, whose team now sits at 12-0.
Bingham came into the game with a perfect 6-0 record, and timely hitting in the third inning with back-to-back two-out singles by Noe Barawis and Jones gave Bingham the 2-0 lead and had defending state champion Riverton feeling the early pressure.
By the time Bingham came to the plate again in the bottom of the fourth it trailed 7-2. That’s the reality through for most teams as Riverton has scored double digit runs in seven of 12 games now.