Wilcox Lady Patriots pick up region wins over Clinch and Turner

Published 5:38 pm Friday, September 7, 2018

Staff Reports 

ROCHELLE- The Wilcox County High School softball team picked up two road region wins this week versus Clinch County and Turner County.

Lady Patriots 7, Clinch County 1

On Tuesday afternoon the Lady Patriots traveled to Homerville to play against the Clinch County Lady Panthers. Wilcox took control of the game in the middle innings before putting the game away with four runs in the top of the seventh.

Wilcox picked up the first two runs of the game in the top of the third inning and one in the fourth. Lexie Anderson reached base on an error to lead off the inning and Kaitlyn Harvey then moved the runner up to second base with a sacrifice bunt. MacKenzie White followed with a base hit to give Wilcox runners at first and third base. Wilcox starting pitcher, Chastity Stephens, was subsequently hit by a pitch to load up the bases, and Anderson scored the first run of the game after another Clinch error on a ball hit to left field by Anna Tripp. Carlee Walls came up with an RBI in the next at bat after being hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. Courtesy runner, Camya Dawson, scored the run on the Walls RBI and Wilcox led 2-0 after the top of the third.

Stephens pitched a three up, three down bottom of the third inning and the Lady Patriots added to their lead in the fourth.

Grace Keene led off the top of the fourth with a base hit to left and Maci Martin put down a sacrifice bunt that led to a Clinch County error, resulting in the two runners making it to second and third with no outs. Anderson reached next to load up the bases for the Lady Patriots again, and Harvey followed with a sacrifice fly to score Keene. Wilcox led 3-0 going into the bottom half of the fourth.

Clinch County got back within two runs of the Wilcox lead after a sacrifice fly made it 3-1 in the bottom of the sixth, but the Lady Patriots put the game away in the top of the seventh.

Anderson reached base again on an error to start the inning, and Jalynn Keene came up next with a double to center field to give Wilcox runners at second and third. White subsequently pushed a run across and reached base on a fly ball to center field and Stephens followed with an RBI double to make the score 5-1 in favor of Wilcox. Tripp sent Stephens home on a fly ball to left that fell for another Clinch County error, and Martin picked up an RBI single for the seventh and final run of the game for Wilcox.

Stephens picked up the win in the circle for the Lady Patriots with seven innings pitched in which she allowed only one run on two Clinch hits while striking out seven batters. She also led the batting lineup with two hits, an RBI and a run scored in three at bats. Anderson scored two runs in the game, while Walls, Harvey and Martin all had an RBI each.

Lady Patriots 19, Turner County 0

On Thursday, Wilcox County made the short trip over to Ashburn to take on the Turner County Lady Rebels. The Lady Patriots run ruled Turner while pitchers, Jalynn Keene and Grace Keene, combined to throw a four inning no hitter in the contest.

The two pitchers threw two innings in the game each and only gave up two base runners between them, on just two walks, and they combined for five strikeouts in the contest.

The Lady Patriots scored runs in all four innings, and finished the contest off with a 12-run top of the fourth. Grace Keene also had a big game for the Wilcox batting lineup, finishing with two hits, including a double and three runs batted in. Dawson also finished with three RBIs in the game. Stephens and Tripp both finished the game with two hits and three runs scored each. Other players with RBIs in the game against Turner were: Carlee Walls, Destiny Tisdol, Dee Howard, Maci Martin, JaMerical Marshall, Kaleigh Walls, Madison Terry, and Blakelyn Bloodworth, all with one apiece.

All stats were provided by Wilcox County softball’s GameChanger account.