Ayer, Hornets take home opener vs. TA

Senior Callie Ayer belted a first-pitch solo home run to go with a two-run single that backed up her complete-game pitching effort Monday in Westfield’s home softball opener. The Hornets held off Tiftarea 9-4 by turning a big bases-loaded double play in one inning and ending another of the Panther turns with an out at home.

Ayer, amid a lineup loaded with freshmen and sophomores under second-year head coach Danny Camp, gave up eight hits, three of which were for extra bases. She walked just one batter and struck out three. In what became a standard in Westfield baseball games last spring with Camp as an assistant, Ayer helped execute the hidden ball trick to get the hosts out of another Tiftarea threat.

Westfield never trailed after going ahead 5-0 through two innings of play. The young batting order loaded the bases in the bottom of the first without getting a hit. Ayer put the bat on the softball time after time, foul ball after foul ball, and then doubled down the third-base line. She drove in two runs, then a third touched home via the wild pitch.

Tiftarea filled the bases with two safties in the top of the second. Camp had a talk with the infield, and Ayer’s first pitch afterwards came back to her. She went to catcher Claire Jones for one out, and Jones went to first completing the double play. Still with two in scoring position, Ayer recorded her first strikeout.

Without a hit in the bottom half, Westfield took the 5-0 lead.

While Camp’s defense was big in that second inning, two errors put Tiftarea in position to score two times in the fourth. It was that hidden ball trick that got the Hornets out of further trouble, but the Panthers proceeded to make it a 5-3 game in the top of the fifth. There was a leadoff double deep to center and a one-out single.

Megan Eason, with two outs, fielded a grounder on her knees at third base. She got up and recognized she had an easy force at home, which Jones executed to keep the Hornets up two.

Ayer led off the home half going deep (6-3). In the sixth, Brooke Knowles started a three-run rally doubling down the left-field line. Madison Baire bunted Knowles to third, and Eason singled the run in off the pitcher’s glove.

With two outs, RBI hits came off the bats of Sarah Morgan Martin and Elana Hooper.

An important AB for Davison

Though she popped out to the first baseman, it was an important at-bat Monday for Westfield softball senior Eden Davison. It was her first in the 2015 season, and one that seemed a long ways away considering what she went through in the offseason.

When Westfield holds its second day of classes today (Wednesday), Davison will be at another school – the University of Florida in Gainesville – for another examination of a benign tumor discovered in her jaw area.

The game was Westfield’s first at home in the new fall season, and the Lady Hornets played the Tiftarea Panthers. Davison revealed that, during what was the dental procedure known as a root canal, a “huge hole” was discovered.

From there, Davison went to the UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital, and it was there she learned she had a tumor. She said 90 percent of her jawbone was surgically removed and she receives steroid shots.

“They say it’s the biggest (tumor) they ever saw there,” said Davison, still smiling and happy to be in the Hornet dugout despite it all. She was cleared medically to take swings against live softball pitching, but said she hasn’t been cleared to play defensively.

Every Wednesday since, Davison said she’s made the four-hour journey to Gainesville, Fla. Whether or not she will have an operation has yet to be determined. She said it would require a metal plate be placed in the jawbone, but since she does not have it, she said that makes surgery a question mark.

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