Precision Auto Machine 30
Chaos 1
Tournament play for girls Senior League softball began Tuesday night at Midway. The tournament is single-elimination, so it was “win or go home” for the teams.
Chaos took a final bow in its matchup versus Precision Auto Machine. The final score was not pretty. However, Chaos did manage to get a run across in the bottom of the first.
Ashlyn Graves reached base, and Krista Cowan followed up with an infield hit. After a Kimbo McBride fly out, Brettly Shelton whacked a base hit to left field to score Graves for the run.
Precision Auto Machine, meanwhile, scored many, many runs to advance.
Dana’s Dog-On Grooming 25
Douglas & Lanier 10
Douglas & Lanier fell into a 13-0 hole and could not dig out of it in its matchup versus Dana’s.
D&L pickup Baylee Norrod had a sleek catch in right-center field to rob Dana’s player Kylie “Boog” Langenback of a hit.
Offensively for D&L, BeBe Brackley had an inside-the-park home run and 3 RBIs, Clara Brackley had two RBIs, and Rachel Bell had an inside-the-park dinger.
Smarty Pants 22
Precision Auto Machine 10
To beat Smarty Pants in tournament play, Precision was going to need near-perfect defensive baseball and solid hitting. It didn’t happen, though a valiant effort was made.
As usual, the Smarty Pants offense was running wild and didn’t need a nap. Hannah Richardson had 3 RBIs, Emily Richardson had 3 RBIs, Kaytee Farmer had 2 RBIs, Kylie Young had 2 RBIs, Saydie Farmer had 2 RBIs, and Payton Farmer had 1 RBI. That’s a bunch of RBIs.
The story of the game, though, was the play of Smarty Pants players Emily Myers and Sierah Kester. Myers had 5 RBIs, all of them coming in the first three innings. Myers’ bat helped to get Smarty Pants off to a good start. Leadoff hitter Sierah Kester was injured in the top of the third when she collided with Precision’s Mary Grace Martin while running to first base.
However, she returned like a champ to the field of play, and in the top of the fourth she hit an inside-the-park home run moonshot to left field to account for 3 RBIs. She picked up another RBI later on in the contest.
Defensively at shortstop, Kester was stellar. In the bottom of the first, she caught a liner off the bat of Precision’s Emeline Bell, then threw to first base to double-up a wandering runner.
In the bottom of the second, she caught a Paisley Wanamaker fly and then threw to first base to double-up yet another drifting runner. Her defense was spectacular.
Crushettz 17
Dana’s Dog-On Grooming 11
In the only truly close game of the evening Crushettz put an end to the championship dreams of Dana’s. After three innings the score was 9-8 in favor of Crushettz. In the fourth, Crushettz began to separate.
Taylor Coldwell had an infield hit to score Madelyn Powers. Then Anna Prater hit a knock to left-center field to get Aleksa Rodriguez and Coldwell home. After getting another run across in the fifth, Crushettz did more scoring in the sixth. Allena Muncey and pickup Izzy Pitts had RBI hits in that inning, and pickups Henslea Carter and Brooke Kesey had RBI groundouts.
Crushettz benefitted from the ever-reliable defense of pickup Izzy Pitts, whose defensive chops were on display the whole game but especially in the fourth inning. That was when Dana’s player Kacie Newby’s lightning shot of a grounder was snatched by Pitts.
As a side note, this game was marred by bleacher-sitting young men who were verbally harassing the female players. These were the kind of boys who show their toughness by jeering at teenage girls playing slow-pitch softball.
An umpire eventually ordered the gentlemen to leave the bleachers.
