The Shadow
DALEVILLE – The Bath County softball team participated in the Red Division of the Botetourt Bash softball tournament at the Botetourt Sports Complex this past Saturday and came away with a second place finish.
The Lady Chargers took on three different Group AA schools in the tournament, winning two of their three games.
Bath County opened play Friday with an 11-0 five-inning rout of the Tazewell Bulldogs.
The Chargers poured it on early, scoring eight runs in the first three innings.
Amanda Shifflett and Emily Bartley singled to get the Chargers going in the first inning and Jailyn Ford helped her own cause with a two-run double. Bekkah Pauley followed with an RBI single to give Bath County an early 3-0 lead.
Taylor Grubbs coaxed a walk to start the Lady Chargers’ second-inning rally and Bartley reached on an error. Ford would then clear the bases with another two-run double and later scored on a Bulldogs’ error to increase the Bath County lead to 6-0.
An Allyson Cutlip single got things going for the Lady Chargers in the third and Shifflett reached on a dropped third strike to put two aboard for Ford. The junior singled to plate them both to increase Bath’s lead to 8-0.
The Lady Chargers added three runs in the top of the fifth to put the mercy rule into effect as they cruised past Tazewell, 11-0.
Ford struck out 13 in the five-inning win, allowing just one hit and did not walk a batter.
The Chargers went on to sting the Brookville Bees in Saturday morning’s semifinals, 9-0.
The game opened the exact same way as Friday’s with Shifflett and Bartley recording first inning singles and scoring on a two-run double off the bat of Ford. Pauley followed with an RBI single to give Bath an early 3-0 lead after one inning.
Ford drew a third-inning walk and Pauley followed with her first home run of the season, a two-run blast, to increase the Chargers’ lead to 5-0.
Bath County plated four more runs in the top of the seventh to increase their lead to 9-0.
Ford improved her mound record to 6-0 on the year as she scattered three hits over seven innings. Ford struck out 13 and walked one batter.
Bath County advanced to championship game of the Red Division to take on host Lord Botetourt and suffered their first loss of the season, 3-2.
The game was scoreless through two innings before the Chargers finally put two runs on the board.
Hannah Robertson and Cutlip singled and Shifflett and Bartley followed with consecutive RBI singles to give Bath County the lead, but the Cavaliers countered with two runs of their own to knot the game at two.
The game remained knotted at two up until the seventh inning.
Due to time limit, the game went to tiebreaker rules in the seventh inning.
In the international tiebreaker rule, the person who committed the last out the previous inning starts at second base.
This luckily for the Chargers was speedster Robertson, but Robertson was caught stealing third after a botched bunt attempt and the Chargers went down without a threat.
The Lady Cavaliers sacrificed their runner over to third with a bunt and Samantha Barton lifted a soft fly ball to center field, but the throw to the plate was not in time and Lord Botetourt handed Bath County its first loss of the season, 3-2.
Ford struck out eight batters and hit one, allowing three runs (one earned) on four hits.
“What a great experience for the girls. To come in here against three tough AA schools and almost walk away with the championship is something they, and everyone in Bath County should be proud of,” said Bath County coach Lisa Baugh. “We wanted to make the bigger schools take notice of little Bath County and I think we did that.
“We hit the ball great the entire weekend and just ran out of gas in the last game,” added Baugh. “J.J. was pitching her third game in less than 24 hours and with the errors you could tell we were dragging just a little. Still, we did ourselves and the school proud and now we can go into our game with a tough Alleghany team this week with a little confidence and keep building and getting better.”
Bath County (6-1) will be back in action Wednesday at Alleghany at 4:30 p.m.
