Demonettes overcome rough start to take down Dublin

WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — It wasn’t pretty, but the Warner Robins Demonettes overcame their mistakes, pulled together and took down the Dublin Lady Irish 11-8 in Wednesday’s softball matchup.

The teams almost seemed to switch places through the final innings of the game, as it was the Demonettes’ errors that put them down, but Dublin’s errors allowed the game winning play.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, after tying it up at eight in the previous inning, Jiyah Holt took an 11-8 lead with an in the park home run that was helped along by several fielding errors by Dublin.

Everywhere Dublin threw the ball, it missed the mark.

Missed catches, failed scoop ups, you name it, Dublin likely missed it. Those misplays sent Hillary Haynes and Verkesia Fuller home, and after a final missed throw to third base, Holt made her way around third base and down to home plate.

“I told my dad earlier today: Softball is about measuring inches. Taking that extra inch and executing on somebody else’s mistakes,” Demonettes head coach Rebecca White said after the game. “It’s sad to say, but it is what it is. My biggest quote that I tell [the team] all the time is, ‘It’s not the mistake you make that determines your success, it’s what you do after the mistake.’ That happens a lot of the time in softball.”

White’s quote rang true as Leanne Butts, the defense and the bats all had a slow start.

Butts, who played all seven innings to get her first varsity win, once again struggled to find the middle of the zone.

The first batter singled past a diving Amiyah Cray. Butts hit the second, walked the third and after a fly out to first base she walked in the first run.

The catcher also struggled, missing several pitches that sent runners to home plate to score.

After going down 4-0, on another missed pitch, Butts managed to get home to tag out the final runner and end the side.

Dublin’s Caitlyn Nesbitt gave the Demonettes’ offense a hard time and went three up three down in the first, and after a walk she struck out the next three batters in the second.

The Demonettes entered the third inning down 5-0, and the momentum began to shift.

Butts struck out the first batter, Fuller caught the second out at third base and the final was thrown out at first after a line drive to Kennedy Thomas.

In the bottom of the third the Demonettes’ bats finally started to show signs of life.

Kor’veanna Slaughter drove in the first run of the game with her RBI double. Then, with two outs, Haynes hit a RBI single as Dublin’s first baseman couldn’t scoop up the ball.

Haynes stole home on a missed pitch, and Thomas was walked in for the Demonettes’ fourth run of the inning.

Another missed pitch and the final out being dropped in left field gave Dublin the 8-4 lead heading into the fifth.

The final three innings is when the Demonettes finally pulled it together.

In the top, Butts struck out two batters and Haynes finished it off with a catch in left field. After missing the catch in the fourth, she didn’t miss another from that spot.

The bottom of the fifth is when the theatrics started.

Taylor Alderman ended up with a three RBI ball standing on first base, as everywhere Dublin threw the ball it was off the mark.

With the game tied at eight, the Demonettes took the lead in the sixth and never looked back.

“Having heart at the plate and believing,” White said on what pushed them over the hump. “I think they were a little anxious at the beginning, but we always talk about not just believing in ourselves but believing in the person that’s hitting behind us. I think once they got it, the rest of them it was a trickle down effect.”

Only a handful of games into her varsity career this kind of experience is paramount to Butts’s development, something White knows will compound as time goes on.

“It’s great. I always talk about leadership. Earlier when Amiyah Cray was on base I said, ‘You’re a senior I shouldn’t have to worry about you on the bases,’” White said. “I was watching something else and she scored. That experience will build on and eventually I won’t have to say anything to [Butts]. Games like this will help us down the road. She knows her defense has her back and her teammates have her back at the plate.”

After an away game at Howard on Monday, Aug. 21, the Demonettes will be back at home against Perry on Wednesday, Aug. 23 at 6 p.m.

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