Cobras get rattled but win Bi-District against Marion

By Michael Brooks Staff Writer     

From Little League and sand lot baseball to high school and the Major Leagues, every kid who has ever played baseball has dreamed of hitting a game winning home run. On Thursday night during the Bi-District playoff game, Cobra catcher Jillian Jones realized that dream. In a tied ball game in extra innings, Jones connected for a two run walk-off home run that gave Industrial a 4-2 victory over the Marion Bulldogs and sent the Cobras on to the Area playoff round.     

“It was awesome,” Jones said. “It was something I will remember for a long time. Marion’s pitcher pitched well, but as the game progressed I figured out where I needed to be in the batter’s box and which pitches she threw that I couldn’t hit and which ones I could foul off or put in to play.”     

The Cobras overly potent bats didn’t wake up until the final inning as they had only managed five singles until the eight inning. But in the eighth Lexey Mikulec came up with the Cobras first extra base hit when she doubled just before Jones hit her homer. Jones and Mikulec each had two hits on the night.     

Mikulec also achieved a major personal milestone when she picked up her 500 strikeouts as a Cobra.     

“It’s been a long time coming,” a teary-eyed Mikulec said. “I’ve been at it for three years. I pitched parts of maybe two or three games as a freshman whenever my sister didn’t want to pitch, and then pretty much every game since.”

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