Lady Panthers cruise to 5-1 win to sweep season series over Du Quoin

While the Lady Panthers needed some late-inning heroics to beat Du Quoin in the first meeting of the season, they were able to win avoid similar drama Monday evening with a 5-1 win over their Perry County rival. <br />Pinckneyville was able to get to get to the Lady Indian's starting pitcher Mackenzie Jackson a little bit earlier the second time around, scoring a pair of runs in the fourth and fifth with RBI's coming from Lauren Jackson, Lynlee Lindner and Josie Gleason.<br />Pinckneyville head coach Alan Engelhardt was happy to see his team make the adjustment against a pitcher of Jackson's caliber.<br />"I give her (Jackson) a ton of credit," Engelhardt said. "From the time she came into high school till now, she has become a much better pitcher and she is a very good pitcher now. <br />"For us to make that adjustment and drive some balls the other way off of her and get a couple of those early runs, that was huge for us because then you can relax a little bit."<br />Pinckneyville junior Mariah Clark was as dominant as she has been all season the first six inning against the Lady Indians, allowing no runs on two hits and two walks while fanning 12. <br />But, Du Quoin made some noise to close out the game.<br />Sadie Day got things started with a one-out single and Olivia Whitley kept things alive with a two-out single an at bat later. Mayci McKinnies drew a walk to load the bases up.<br />Katie Smith was hit next to bring Du Quoin's first run across the board, but Clark settled down and was able to force a fly out to right field to close out the 5-1 win. <br />"She was getting up in the zone a little bit and had some problems finding it (at the end), but she settled in when we needed it too," Engelhardt said. "She's tough and I thought Du Quoin made a nice little adjustment mid game on her and made us throw a little bit differently to them. <br />"But then Mariah did a nice job of adjusting back to take it away."<br />With the win, Pinckneyville improves to 14-5 and 6-1 in conference play with lone loss coming at the hands of Carterville, a team they will get the chance to play again next Monday (April 17). <br />But, Engelhardt is not looking that far ahead, fully aware of the tough conference matchups his team has this week against Anna-Jonesboro Tuesday (today) and Nashville (Thursday). <br />"This is a tough conference," Engelhardt said. "There are very, very few games where you can (have an easy game), those don't happen. We have a few more big ones this week to take of before we can even start talking about Carterville next week. <br />"I told the kids, 'you control your own destiny.' Every game we win we still control our destiny where we can still get a share of that conference by winning out."<br />For Du Quoin, they drop to 12-9 and will look to bounce back Tuesday (today) with a conference matchup at Sparta, slated to start at 4:30 p.m.