Gallery by Tina Laney
Coal City – Bluefield carried an impressive 24-6 record into game one of the Class AA Region 3 tournament against Independence.
Still, there were questions surrounding the Beavers as to just how good they really were this year.
Wednesday night on Larry “Tom” Poe Field in Coal City, Bluefield silenced the doubters.
Riding a two-run homer from junior Cara Brown, Bluefield rallied from a 3-1 deficit to take a 4-3 win in the best-of-3 series.
“This was a big win for us,” Bluefield head coach Barry Reed said. “We have been off 10 or 12 days and hadn’t played. The weather has been bad and we don’t have an indoor facility. We were struggling to find a place to get a little bit of practice. We played a lot better than I thought we would tonight.”
After arriving late due to construction traffic on the interstate, Bluefield quickly fell behind 3-1 after the first inning.
Most of the damage for the visitors was self-inflicted with two walks, a single and a hit batsman among the first five batters.
The three Patriot runs came on a bases loaded walk, a wild pitch and a safety squeeze from Harmony Mills.
“After the way we started, I thought it was just a matter of time, but we had no flow today,” Independence head coach Ken Adkins said. “Give Bluefield all the credit. They put balls in play and made plays when they had to tonight. We did not. We didn’t pitch well. We didn’t hit well and we didn’t field it well.”
Over the next two innings neither team scored, but in the top of the fourth, the momentum jumped inside the Bluefield dugout.
Following a leadoff single from Maddie Lawson, Brown stepped in and ripped the first pitch over the fence to the deepest part of the park, tying the game at 3-3.
“Last year Cara hit eight home runs, but this year she has only hit two. Boy, did she hit a big one tonight,” Reed said.
After getting caught looking in her first trip to the plate, Brown made a crucial adjustment and went back to the basics.
“My first at bat wasn’t very good and I wasn’t proud of it,” Brown admitted. ” My second at bat, I was thinking base hit, base hit, base hit. I saw the pitch coming, but I wasn’t really expecting to hit a home run. It just happened.”
While her teammates were clawing their way back into the game, Izzy Smith put her first-inning woes behind her and was stellar the final six frames.
“Let’s face it, Izzy threw a great game and better than I thought she would throw,” Reed said. “She didn’t play last year and she has gotten better as the year has gone along. Instead of having three bad innings like she did in March, now she just has one bad inning. She has really improved herself. All of her pitches work most of the time and it really keeps the hitters off stride.”
Over the last six innings, Smith scattered four hits, two of those by Avorie Varney, hitting in the eight-spot in the lineup. Smith also recorded nine strikeouts over that span.
“We were definitely thinking we were the underdogs, so we had something to prove and that gave us some motivation,” Brown said.
Adkins credited Smith for her strong performance Wednesday.
“Their pitcher settled in and got stronger as the game went on,” Adkins said. “We swung at some bad pitches and we were pulling off the ball. But, hey, that is the pitchers job to make you swing and miss.”
The eventual game-winning run came in a wild fifth inning for the Beavers.
Following an error and a single from Abby Richardson to open the inning, Lawson lifted a fly ball to Kendall Martin in center. Martin reeled the ball in and threw a strike to third base, which erased the Bluefield runner in a run down.
Richardson wisely took second during the run down before she stole third base and scored the go-ahead run on a passed ball.
The best chance for the home team to score came in the third inning with runners on the corners with just one out.
Catcher Grace Richardson threw out the Indy runner trying to steal second and Smith fanned the next batter to escape the threat.
“Grace is an outstanding athlete. She is actually a great outfielder, but I can’t play her out there because I won’t have a catcher,” Reed said. “She has a great arm.”
“I bragged on our defense, but we haven’t made this many errors all year,” Adkins said. “That doesn’t count the (mental) error when they throw it down to second and we didn’t run home.”
After winning its first sectional title in school history, Bluefield is now one win away from a regional title and a trip to the state softball tournament next week.
“We are so young and inexperienced that I don’t think we know we are supposed to be tense,” Reed said, grinning. “I thought they would be as tight as they could be tonight, but they were as loose as they could be.”
Independence now has its back against the wall needing two wins to be regional champions.
“I told the kids after the game, we have to win two games. It doesn’t matter if you win the first two or that last two. I worried about this because of all of the time off,” Adkins said. “We didn’t put ourselves in a position to win. They did all of the things they needed to do to win. I have to do a better job of coaching. We will come back, do it again tomorrow and see what happens.”
Game two moves to Bluefield Thursday at 6 p.m.
