By RICH TORRES
PENDLETON – The recipe for disaster was there on Thursday night, but Noblesville freshman ace Madison Taylor never wavered.
Instead, she kept attacking as the strike zone morphed and the host Pendleton Heights Arabians loaded the bases in the bottom of the first.
With the Class 4A No. 22 Millers ahead, Taylor’s composure was challenged while trying to protect Noblesville’s early 4-0 advantage despite a lengthy 40-pitch opening frame.
She hardly flinched.
The 4A Arabians scored one run off a wild pitch and were awarded three walks in the inning, but Taylor locked in to strikeout Chloe Closser to end the threat en route to 6-2 victory.
“It was a little bit of a struggle, but it was fun,” Taylor remarked after her 89-pitch performance for her eighth pitching win of the season. “You have to trust in yourself and in your coach and teammates.”
The Florida State verbal commit scattered two hits over four complete frames, striking out six and walking five while carrying a no-hitter into the third inning.
“I thought she had great control. I thought the strike zone was horrible,” Noblesville head coach Deke Bullard said. “I think both sides would agree to that because both catchers, you could tell, were holding pitches longer that were strikes being call balls. And I’m not sure what was being seen on that part.”
Other than the first inning, the Arabians (11-5) saw few opportunities, posting five combined hits against Taylor and reliever Baily Ryan, who went three innings with a strikeout.
An RBI single by Amanda White in the bottom of the seventh supplied the Arabians with their final run. White led her team by going 2-for-4, but the Millers’ pitching duo silenced seven Arabians’ batters through 14 at-bats.
The Millers’ hitters did the rest, fueled by a five-hit, four-run top of the first.
“Our philosophy is always to get out ahead early. It allows our defense to relax. It allows us to play a little bit looser,” Bullard said. “We were fortunate to come out and our bats were good in the first inning. We struggled from there on out, though.”
Noblesville (8-4) sent eight batters to the plate in the first, opening the game with four straight hits.
Abby Brown connected first with a leadoff double, followed by RBI singles by Chloe Tragesser and Julia Furiak. Grace Smith split the two at-bats with a double, and Emily Minett plated her 19th RBI with a sacrifice fly. Taylor drove in the fourth run with a single to left field and two outs.
The Millers’ hit barrage chased Arabians’ starter Kelsey Sturgeon after the first as Pendleton Heights turned to Jordan Benefiel. The second-inning switch cooled Noblesville momentarily, but the lapse didn’t last long.
“(Benefiel) definitely confused some of our hitters with spin. She had a lot of them off balance, and I think she put a lot of doubt in some of their heads,” Bullard said. “But the great thing about our team is they battled through it, tried to figure things out and made adjustments.”
Benefiel struck out five through six innings and walked one. She retired the first six batters she faced and didn’t allow a base runner during the Millers’ final eight at-bats.
In between, a three-hit, one-run top of the fourth and a towering solo home run by freshman Ella White in the fifth padded the lead 6-1.
White crushed Benefiel’s 2-2 offering over a viewing deck behind the centerfield fence at Legends Field for her eighth on the season. She entered the game tied for third on the state’s recent home run leaderboard.
“She is a very, very talented player, and I truly believe that the next three years will be absolutely special,” Bullard said of White, who is hitting .474 this year with 18 RBIs.
Brown pushed the Millers’ lead to 5-1 in the fourth with a bases-loaded walk to score Kyleigh Lowry. Six different Millers drove in a run and eight of the team’s 10 hitters contributed to Noblesville’s nine hits.
The win was the Millers second in three games after the program’s unbeaten streak ended at six straight during the Carmel Invitational last weekend.
Noblesville lost to 4A No. 6 Lake Central 3-2 in eight innings, 4A No. 3 Castle 14-4 and 4A No. 12 Penn 5-4 during the invitational. They fell to 4A No. 10 Cathedral 7-3 on Wednesday but defeated 4A No. 8 Harrison 14-13 at home on Tuesday.
“Winning is always good for momentum. We purposely schedule our schedule to be very tough. We played five ranked teams in the top 12, five games in a row,” Bullard said. “And we battled. That makes us battle tested, and that’s what we want going into sectional.”
Noblesville 6, Pendleton Heights 2
Noblesville AB R H RBI
Abby Brown 3 1 1 1
Chloe Tragesser 4 1 1 1
Grace Smith 4 1 1 0
Julia Furiak 4 0 1 1
Ella White 3 1 1 1
Emily Minett 1 0 1 1
Kyleigh Lowry 1 2 0 0
Madison Taylor 3 0 2 1
Shea Sterrett 0 0 0 0
Rylie Moore 3 0 0 0
Olivia Stinson 3 0 1 0
Totals 29 6 9 6
Score by innings
Noblesville 400 110 0 – 6 9 1
Pendleton Heights 100 000 1 – 2 5 0
HR: White. 2B: Brown, Smith. SB: Lowry. SAC: Emily Minett.
Noblesville pitching IP R ER H
Taylor 4.0 1 1 2
Ryan 3.0 1 1 3
Strikeouts: Taylor 6, Ryan 1. Walks: Taylor 5.