BROOKVILLE — Since Brookville covers its infield with a thick tarp, a game originally scheduled to be played at Carlisle was switched to the Lady Devils’ home field due to saturating rain that fell over the weekend and on Monday.

Even with a protective tarp it took three hours of arduous work to get Brookville’s infield ready for play, according to coach Mike Gardner.

Infield foul territory from home plate to third base was saturated as well as the back of the infield between third and second base. Both areas required several loads of dirt to make the field playable.

The field was still tacky. That came to light when a Carlisle player had to slide into second base and ended up tearing her pants on the unforgiving dirt.

Carlisle emerged with a 6-0 victory to improve to 16-0 overall and 8-0 in Southwestern Buckeye League play.

Carlisle, currently ranked No. 7 in the state in Division III, has compiled a 47-7 record and won back-to-back SWBL and D-III district titles the last two years. Head coach Tom Shelton is 168-86 in 11 seasons.

Starting pitcher Savannah Brown struck out seven and limited Brookville to one hit, a leadoff double by Kara Gardner in the bottom of the first inning. Gardner got thrown out on a rundown between third and home on a ground ball fielder’s choice to third.

Brown was 15-2 with 133 strikeouts last year and was SWBL West Division Pitcher of the Year.

“It’s tough to face a pitcher like Brown and we will have to deal with her again next year,” Gardner said.

Carlisle took a 1-0 lead in the top of the second on a home run to right center field by Ashlyn Chatterton.

In the top of the third inning Carlisle got a leadoff single by Ashlyn Allen. Chyla Miller drew a walk and Brown hit a popup to Gardner at shortstop. Gardner threw to second baseman Madisyn Cantrell to catch Allen off base for a double play.

Miller stole second and Alaina Eldridge belted a double to center to score Miller to extend the lead to 2-0.

The Lady Indians added another run in the top of the fourth. Mya Howard hit a leadoff single and stole second. Chatterton drew a walk and a wild pitch enabled Howard and Chatterton to advance to third and second respectively. With two outs Allen hit an infield grounder and a low throw to first got bobbled enabling Howard to score to put Carlisle up 3-0.

In the top of the fourth Kara Adkins drew a two out walk and Howard belted a double down the left field line to score Adkins to make it 4-0.

Carlisle added two more runs in the top of the seventh. Brown hit a one out double to center and Eldridge singled to right. Adkins got hit by a pitch to load the bases. Howard hit a grounder to Brookville pitcher Grace Burton who threw the ball to catcher Isabelle Holp to force out Brown at the plate.

Chatterton followed with a single to left field to score Eldridge and Adkins to put Carlisle up 6-0.

Brookville went down in order in the bottom of the seventh.

Brookville pitcher Grace Burton gave up eight hits, walked three, struck out one and beaned two batters with five earned runs. Prior to this victory Carlisle was averaging 15 runs per game.

“We played pretty good against them, about as good as can be expected,” Gardner said. “We are still playing pretty clean defense. Obviously, we didn’t hit the ball like we wanted to tonight. We started out with a double and thought maybe we would make something happen, but it just didn’t turn out that way.”

Gardner credited the top four players in his batting order for hitting the ball well of late, and on any given day a player in the lower part of the lineup will come through with hits too.

It just wasn’t in the cards against the SWBL’s top team.

Reach Ron Nunnari at [email protected].