By Will Jacobs
Last Thursday, the Plainview Lady Bears hosted the Area Tournament. The Lady Bears faced off against North Sand Mountain High School and Pisgah High School on Thursday and would turn around and play Pisgah again on Friday.
The first game for Plainview came on Thursday when they faced off against the North Sand Mountain Lady Bison. Plainview swiftly took care of the Lady Bison by defeating them by a score of 12-0 after five innings due to the mercy rule. Lily Boswell and Ava Jacobs pitched for the Lady Bears, combine they threw a no-hitter against the Lady Bison. Boswell finished the game with three innings pitched with four strikeouts, while Jacobs finished the game with two innings pitched and six strikeouts.
The next game for the Lady Bears came later Thursday night where they squared off with the Pisgah Lady Eagles. This game was a close one that saw Plainview holding off the Lady Eagles in the last inning.
Pisgah jumped out to an early 3-0 lead after scoring one run in the top of the first inning and added two more runs in the top of the third inning. Plainview answerd back in the bottom of the fourth inning by scoring four runs to take a 4-3 lead.
Pisgah scored two more runs in the top of the fifth inning to take a 5-4 lead late in the game. Plainview answered back in the bottom of the fifth inning by scoring three more runs to take a 7-5 lead.
After a scoreless sixth inning for both teams, Pisgah cut the Plainview lead to just one run in the top of the seventh inning. Plainview managed to hold on to defeat the Lady Eagles by a final score of 7-6.
Kenzi Traylor pitched for Plainview, and she finished the game with six innings pitched and one strikeout.
The next game for Plainview came on Friday where they faced off against Pisgah. Plainview had yet to be defeated in the tournament and would have to be beaten twice in order for Pisgah to be named the Area Champions.
Plainview was the first to put runs on the board in the bottom of the second inning by scoring three runs to take an early 3-0 lead. However, Pisgah answered back for the runs they had lost by scoring four runs in the top of the fourth inning to take a 4-3 lead over Plainview.
Both teams failed to score until the top of the sixth inning when Pisgah added one more run to their lead off of a homerun by Annie Hughes to take a 5-3 lead over the Lady Bears. Plainview failed to score any more runs throughout the remainder of the game and was defeated by Pisgah by a final score of 5-3. Ava Jacobs finished the game with six innings pitched and five strikeouts.
The last game of the tournament came later Friday night against Pisgah. After being defeated by the Lady Eagles in the previous game, Plainview came out onto the field looking to clinch the title of Area Champions.
After preventing the Lady Eagles from scoring in the top of the first inning, Plainview came into the dugout where their offense scored eight runs in the bottom of the first inning to take an early 8-0 lead over Pisgah.
Pisgah was not about to give up. In the top of the second inning, they cut the Plainview lead to just four and trailed 8-4. Plainview failed to answer back for any of those runs, and Pisgah continued to score.
The Lady Eagles added two more runs in the top of the fourth inning to cut the Plainview lead to 8-6.
After a scoreless fifth inning for both teams, Pisgah added one more run to cut the Plainview lead to just one run in the top of the sixth inning to trail 8-7. Plainview answered back for this lost run to extend their lead to 9-7 going into the final inning.
The top of the seventh inning came, and the pressure was on for Plainview. Ava Jacobs was in the pitching circle for the Lady Bears. Pisgah capitalized off errors by Plainview to load the bases with no outs.
Jacobs managed to get a ground ball to second base where Kennedi Traylor fielded the ball cleanly and threw out the runner headed home to get the first out for Plainview. Jacobs then struckout the next batter to get the second out of the inning for the Lady Bears. Finally, Jacobs got a ground ball back to her where she cleanly fielded the ball and threw the runner out at first base to get the final out of the game and clinch the Area Championship by defeating Pisgah 9-7.
Plainview’s next game will come on Friday, May 11th at 12:00 pm at Huntsville where they will face off against Colbert Heights.
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