Thursday’s fastpitch softball game between Hilldale and Vian was riddled with errors, mental mistakes and missed opportunities and the outcome came down to which team could overcome the obstacles.

Hilldale did just that, winning 6-3.

Capitalizing off of three Vian errors, Hilldale scored all six of their runs in the first two innings. In the first inning, HHS first baseman Karlee Hester started the Lady Hornets off with an RBI single that was followed shortly by a three-run double by right fielder Tori McClain.  In the second, Hester struck again with another single scoring two more runs to stretch the Lady Hornets’ lead to 6-0 after two.

Both teams’ defenses and pitching held strong through the third, fourth and fifth innings until Vian struck back in the sixth.  After the Lady Wolverines got runners on base thanks to two Hilldale fielding errors, Leiloni Smith drove in the Lady Wolverines’ first run with an RBI single. Joehanna Morris immediately followed with an RBI single of her own and Brittany Song added another RBI toward the end of the inning to bring the score to 6-3.

After Hilldale was unable to get anything going offensively in the seventh, Vian got two runners on base in the bottom of the inning. But Hilldale junior pitcher Danielle Riddle struck out three consecutive batters to end the inning.

Hilldale coach Darren Riddle was disappointed with his team’s lack of focus in climbing to 11-6 on the season.

“We got that lead and just kind of got complacent,” Riddle said. “When you get someone down like that, you have to keep swinging and putting pressure on them.”

Vian head coach Albis Ramos was wishing he could erase the first two innings of play.

“We played better after the third inning,” Ramos said. “We started playing defense and swinging the bat a little bit.”

Danielle Riddle struck out eleven batters, walking one and allowing six hits in going the distance.  Offensively, Karlee Hester went 2-for-3 with three RBIs and Tori McClain went 1 for 3 with a double and three RBIs.

Smith, Morris and Brittany Song were all 1-for-3 with RBIs for Vian (13-11).

Hilldale is off until Tuesday’s home game against Grove. Vian doesn’t play until Thursday at Sequoyah.