Westfield girls runner-up 4th consecutive softball season.
Three three-run home runs, each by a different player, in one game proved Kyle Davis’ contention that Tattnall Square Academy had the best top-to-bottom hitting lineup in GISA AAA softball. In a series that went the full three games Saturday at Dublin’s Southern Pines Complex, the Trojans defeated Davis’ Westfield Hornets to win their first fast-pitch championship and first softball title overall since a four-year span in slow pitch (92-95).
With the result, Westfield became a four-time runner-up in the best-of-3 format, the previous three coming against Stratford Academy.
Conditions on this afternoon were as much the story as the play on the field. Game 1 began at high noon with mildly warm weather. Rain fell lightly off and on during Game 2, and the wind made for a little chill in the air. The drops got slightly heavier as the third and deciding contest began, but the chill never let up.
Hornet senior pitcher Sydney Barker was brilliant in throwing a shutout in Game 1, the final score 4-0. She scattered seven hits, but most important is that she did not walk a batter, a stat that plagued her during the 2012 state finals.
Barker started all three games and pitched all but one inning of Game 2. Tattnall Square’s Kirsten Albright, also a senior, threw every pitch for her team.
GAME 1
Westfield took a 1-0 first-inning lead in the opening contest on three hits. The term “good piece of hitting” applied in this frame after Hannah Livingston bunted her way on base. Albright got ahead of shortstop Chelsea Whaley 0-2, but the junior went the opposite way for a single.
Good fortune also applied to the Hornet scoring, for the Trojans caught Livingston in a rundown between third base and home plate. There were two outs, and senior Laura Johnson was at the plate. On Albright’s next pitch, Johnson flared a hit inside the right-field line to score Whaley.
Allie Gordan, an eighth-grader for Tattnall Square, had her team’s first hit on a second-inning double. Barker stranded her there as the Trojans kept swinging themselves into outs.
The 1-0 score stood on the board, though. Westfield had four hits from the second through the fifth, two of the hits by Jenni McDaniel. Barker struck out five batters and left five runners on base through five complete. Hannah Kate Jones covered first base from her second base spot two times on bunts.
Johnson led off the bottom of the sixth with a single. Hannah Edwards, batting with one out, homered. McDaniel – with her third hit – and Brooke Knowles singled consecutively, and with two outs senior catcher Callie Hammerle’s hit – her second – upped the lead to 4-0.
Barker wound up with six whiffs in all, including the game’s final out with two Tattnall Square hitters on base.
GAME 2
Tattnall Square’s three three-run home runs were part of a nine-hit attack overall in a 14-1 final that evened the series 1-1 (the game went seven full innings as mercy rules did not apply to deciding games in the GISA finals).
The game was following the patterns of the first contest, but with Tattnall Square scoring first as the home team. All hits in the first inning came with two outs as senior catcher Jade Moncrief doubled and scored on Albright’s single off the wall.
The Trojan defense became adept at turning double plays, which ended Westfield’s first two turns. Hammerle and Livingston started the game with back-to-back hits and were in scoring position from Whaley’s bunt. Albright took Johnson’s grounder for an out at first, and then the Trojans threw out Hammerle at home.
Barker retired seven in a row after giving up her first run of the day. Johnson tied the game on a fourth-inning home run.
But Tattnall Square took over the series in the bottom of the fourth. The Westfield defense played without an error up to that point, but Moncrief led off the inning with a hit and a miscue put two on base for Kendall Hardy. She ripped a three-run home run breaking the tie.
In the home fifth, the bottom of Joey Hiller’s order, Brianna Beasley, singled. Moncrief followed Barker’s first walk of the day with her three-run blast (7-1).
The run total doubled for the Trojans in the sixth, an inning that had two errors and two walks. Leadoff batter Liz Wainwright singled in two runs and Jordan Allen, a sophom*ore, became the third player to knock out a three-run home run.
Albright did not allow a baserunner against the next 11 batters she faced after the Johnson home run. She fanned three.
GAME 3
The Trojans claimed first place on Albright’s 4-0 Game 3 shutout, though offensively Tattnall Square almost left as many runners on base as it had in Game 2 runs (13).
All scoring was in the top of the first, and that including Moncrief’s second home run of the series, a two-run shot. Gordon and Taylor Spivey had singles, Hardy hit a sacrifice fly and a throwing error plated the fourth run.
Westfield’s first serious threat was in the second inning, which started with a Barker single and an Edwards double. Albright secured a grounder to get the first out and hold the runners, and then struck out two.
After the first turn, the Trojans made eight more hits. Hardy doubled after Albright’s single in the top of the third, but Barker fanned the next two. Their biggest chance to extend the lead was in the fifth as two hits and an error filled the bases, but Wainwright popped up to end it.
Albright took a string of 12 outs in a row into the home sixth. Hammerle ripped the first pitch she saw past third base, but Tattnall Square turned its third double play after a liner caught at second base. Whaley and Johnson both singled afterwards, but Albright pitched out of the trouble.
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