Gallery by Greg Barnett
Bluefield – Bluefield took a solid right hook from Wyoming East to open Tuesday’s sectional tournament game.
But the Beavers swung back and kept swinging, bludgeoning their way to a 15-2 victory over the Lady Warriors in Bluefield.
With the win the Beavers advance to the sectional championship game, needing to win one more game to claim the title. Wyoming East falls into the loser’s bracket and will travel to Westside Wednesday in an elimination game.
Wyoming East, losers of a 13-0 decision to Bluefield early in the season, jumped the Beavers early, scoring two runs in the top of the first. Bluefield head coach Justin Hall, who stressed the absence of guarantees in postseason play, was pleased with how his team responded.
“We really didn’t mention (the first inning),” Hall said. “When they came over in the huddle we didn’t mention it. They’re old enough and they’re in positions where they know I don’t have to harp on the mistakes as much unless it’s a full breakdown. So we really didn’t mention it. We came in and said, ‘Let’s hit the ball.’ And we went up to bat.”
The noted mistake came with two outs in the top of the first.
With a pair of runners on, Cadence Clay hit a liner that popped in and out of the glove of the right-fielder, allowing Kaydee Shrewsbury and Alivia Monroe to score.
The Beavers returned the favor in the bottom of the frame with Grace Richardson and Izzy Smith collecting RBIs that scored Abby Richardson and Taylor Mabry to knot the game.
After an uneventful second inning that saw both teams move on unscathed, the Beavers unloaded in the third.
Grace Richardson and Maddie Lawson reached on walks to open the bottom of the frame. Smith followed with a single and the next four batters (6 through 9), collected at least an RBI each. Cara Brown followed with one on a fielder’s choice with Sophie Hall and Audra Rockness following with a hit each to keep the train rolling.
Abby Matthews followed with a two-run single that plated Rockness and Hall, expanding the advantage to 7-2.
A pair of double steals resulted in two steals of home, as the Warriors’ spiral continued.
“We have a lot of speed in our lineup,” Hall explained. “From top to bottom we’ve got six or seven of them that are really fast and we do push the envelope sometimes. It doesn’t matter the team, we push the envelope to see if they will make that mistake that helps us get another run or another base or puts us in a position to score more runs. So yeah, I mean it’s something that we do. We’re always going to be aggressive.”
A groundout mercifully ended the frame but the hosts picked up where they left off in the fourth, pounding out five more runs to enact the mercy rule.
“Their hitting is the best I’ve seen in a long time,” East head coach Doc Warner said. “They all hit through the lineup.”
“It’s like once one gets hot, we drop a hit there,” Hall said. “We drop a beautiful bunt there, you know and things start the cascade. They feed off of that energy. You know, I’ve been talking about that for a couple of games, and they just feed off of it for each other. It took us a few innings to get used to the off-speed stuff. That kind of had us on the front side a little bit too much. But once they learned to sit and drive it’s when we started hitting the ball and again, one of them started and the rest of them continued it.”
Bluefield, which has played seven innings combined in two games, earns the luxury of more rest as it sits back and awaits the winner of Westside-East. The Beavers can clinch the sectional title on Thursday at home if they beat the winner of that game. They’ll need to lose twice to fumble the crown.
“The rest is good,” Hall said. “It’s funny, Izzy was just starting to get into a stride in that fourth and fifth inning. She started off a little sluggish and those four and five innings she was bringing it but the rest is good. We gotta maintain focus because the job’s not done yet. So we’re gonna come out here tomorrow and do a light walk through, just some defensive stuff and some fundamentals and just try to keep focus for Thursday. Like I said, job’s not done yet.”
