WATER VALLEY — For the second time in five days, Lafayette and Water Valley met on the softball field. The first encounter was last Monday, where the Commodores squeaked out a 3-2 victor at their place. The second time occurred Friday night with Lafayette winning with a little more cushion, defeating the Blue Devils 10-3 at Water Valley High School.

Lafayette (6-9-1) used a five-run fifth inning to break the game open, after leading 2-1 through the first four frames. The Commodores scored runs in the second, fourth, sixth and seventh innings off of eight hits.

“It’s been a struggle with the offense this season,” Lafayette head coach Katie Jenkins said. “I explained to them I was happy as a whole with their approaches. Their attempts at the plate. The confidence was there. The aggressiveness was there.”

It was a solid night in the pitching circle for Lafayette’s Madisyn Cobbs. Cobb pitched a complete games, giving up three runs off four hits while striking out four and walking two Blue Devil batters. She had three clean innings and struggled only in the final frame where she faced the most batters in an inning on Friday with six and Water Valley managed to score two runs before Cobbs shut the door to earn the win.

“(Cobbs) has been very good on the circle this year,” Jenkins said. “Madisyn’s pitched almost every game maybe except for one or two. She’s been very consistent in the circle. We just need the offense to hit behind her and we’ve seen that now.”

Friday night was a microcosm of the way the season has gone for Water Valley (2-7). The Blue Devils managed to keep Lafayette in check for most of the game, outside of the one big inning in the fifth. They scored a run in the third to tie the game at 1-1 before Lafayette’s offense got going. Water Valley left five runners on base.

“That’s just what we’ve been doing,” Water Valley head coach Allison McCain said. “We keep it close, we just can’t find whatever it is to get runs going. We’re leaving them on base and we’re not finding away to move them around. We’re either hitting them straight to people or not finding the gap.”

D.J. Douglas took the circle for Water Valley and also worked a complete game. Douglas gave up all 10 runs, five of them earned, while striking out four batters and walking one.

Lafayette returns to region play, where they are 4-1 in 2-4A, and will travel to Pontotoc on Tuesday. Water Valley travels Vardaman on April 8.