Sabrina Doucette threw two shutouts and Melissa Eckman one for Perry High in the last two days of the Greenway Insurance Brawl in the Fall softball tournament, an event marred for the most part by severe inclement weather.
Perry, Northside, Houston County and Veterans all served as hosts for the new annual tournament that began one week ago (Aug. 21), and Saturday was the only day every game scheduled took place. The first day and Friday had particular issues with lightning and heavy rain, especially in the later sessions.
The Panthers took the field for a 4 p.m. start Friday against Thomas County-Central, and they got all seven innings in with Perry winning 4-0.
Doucette tossed a two-hitter with four strikeouts. She walked one batter, and the Perry defense had two errors. All of that, though, was early in the day as Doucette retired the final 13 TC-C batters she faced. Two of those 13 outs were whiffs, both coming in the bottom of the seventh.
Though it was the Panther home field, Thomas County-Central won the right to be the home team. That meant Perry took the first turns at the plate, and Doucette led off the game with a triple to right. Sammy Gidney’s grounder led to a 1-0 Panther lead.
Lorne Tucker’s offense left the bases loaded in the first and did not take advantage of an error in the second. The Yellow Jackets, in turn, made a two-out bid for the lead in the bottom half by getting two baserunners. Perry’s infield made an error on a groundball, but shortstop Mattie Hamilton backed up the play and successfully threw out the runner heading for home.
Thomas County-Central put another runner in scoring position with two outs in the third. The Panther infield had a bad break when Courtney Winston, at third base, dropped the softball while attempting a force-out tag. Doucette promptly retired the side on a grounder to Hamilton, that being the first of 13 straight to end the game.
Only one time in that stretch did the Yellow Jackets hit the ball to the outfield.
Offensively, Perry scored two runs in the fifth on three hits. Gidney put down a one-out bunt single, Hamilton ripped a base hit and Kaley Sikes’ ‘swinging bunt’ advanced the two Panthers.
Catcher Amber Garrett batted home the runs for 3-0.
The Panthers added one more in the seventh, but lost the services of Sikes to injury in the process. Hamilton walked and Sikes’ bunt was booted. With two outs and both in scoring position, TC-C tried to pick off Sikes, who was hurt going into the base safely while Hamilton scored.
Sikes did not play Saturday as Eckman pitched a four-hitter against First Presbyterian Day, Doucette doubled home the only run of a 1-0 final. Gidney and Winston each had two hits. The game ended with the tying run stranded on third base.
Gidney and Winston each batted in a run later Saturday (the first and seventh frames) as Doucette tossed a five-hit shutout 2-0 against Crawford County.
HOUSTON COUNTY
The Bears of coach Angela Crawford also got one early game in Friday, and that was a back-and-forth affair won by Bryan County 9-7. Taylor Brown and Kenton Thomas each had a double, two singles and an RBI in a game where Houston had leads of 3-0 and 6-4.
After late action was washed out, conditions were much better Saturday, and Houston split a pair with Thomas County-Central and Rutland. The game with the Yellow Jackets went eight innings, and the ‘visiting’ Bears scored two in the eighth to win 3-2. Emily Hittinger pitched a complete game, retiring the last batter with the tying run on third.
The Rutland Hurricanes, however, showed why they are defending Region 2-AAAA champions winning 6-2. Houston County again played as the visiting team and could not score with the bases loaded in the top of the first.
Pitcher Hayley Tierce turned a double play to end Rutland’s opening turn. Rutland had a twin-killing also throwing out Thomas (who led off the second with a double) at home off a catch in left field.
The Hurricanes scored in its second on a two-out bloop hit by first base. The lead went to 3-0 in the third on a two-run double to center.
Amber Coy led off Houston’s fourth with an infield hit. Thomas also singled to help fill the bases, and as Shaelin Browne saw a blooper fall fair the hosts cut the lead to 3-2.
The Bears had just two more hits – from Browne and Coy – afterwards. Rutland’s last big inning was the fifth, which featured two two-out RBI singles and three total runs. Houston had the bases loaded in the seventh, but Carson Carriker was robbed of a hit by a rolling catch made in centerfield.
NORTHSIDE-VETERANS
The Eagles of Northside took a couple of tough losses during Brawl in the Fall play against Georgia Military College Prep and Dodge County. One bright moment was a big 11-4 romp of Strong Rock Christian. In that game, pitcher Sarah Smith pitched a complete-game five-hitter and batted home two runs.
Callie Bookout had three hits, one a triple. Mya Hill and Ashley Calhoun each had two RBI.
Veterans High had all kind of issues getting games in as the county experienced about 10 days of rainy weather. There were three contests completed in the Brawl in the Fall, two of them victories for the Warhawks.
All Veterans runs in an Aug. 21 game with Eagle’s Landing touched home in the fifth and sixth innings, and Mitch Horton’s club won 7-5. Avery Lamb had two doubles and an RBI, Payton Stallworth homered and doubled, and Sierra Stella and Katelyn Winner each registered an RBI hit.
Again, Veterans waited until the last two innings to score against GMC-Prep, but this time it was not enough in a 4-3 loss. Melissa Cox batted home two.
That was Saturday’s first game. Later, Kaylee Albritton pitched a three-hitter with four strikeouts in a 7-0 shutout of Luella. She also ripped three hits – two doubles – and drove home two. Lamb and Stella each had two hits (12 total for VHS), Winner doubled in a run and Ashley Killebrew batted in two.
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