Boyd Buchanan was the underdog in the first round of the Division II, Class A state softball tournament based on pre-game seeds Friday at home, but they didn’t play like it.
Facing a Goodpasture team that entered Friday’s play with a record of 20-13, the team seeded third in the Middle region failed to advance as the fourth-seeded Lady Bucs from the East used one big inning as a springboard to the next round as they hung on to win, 5-4.
The Lady Bucs, who are now 11-15 for the season, did what they needed to do to advance, including getting good pitching, timely hitting and solid defense.
The Lady Bucs only had four hits for the game, but three of them came in the third inning when Boyd Buchanan batted around and scored five runs. The Lady Cougars also helped as two of their three errors were committed in that same inning.
Boyd Buchanan coach Jeff Stone was just happy to see his team play well when it counted the most.
“I thought Kinley Ervin pitched a really good game against a good Goodpasture team and she was able to hang in there at the end when it got kind of tight,” Stone said shortly after the game ended.
“We were fortunate to have that one big inning, but we had to stay focused the rest of the way. I just told her to let the defense help her and she did, but it also helped that she had a couple of quick innings.
“But we’re fortunate to get this win and now we can get ready for our next game on Wednesday,” he added, knowing they will have to travel to West Tennessee to face Jackson Christian in the next round.
Goodpasture coach Brent Dorris knows that his team didn’t play their best game and maybe they needed to at a point where a loss signaled the end of their season.
“There are some days you have it and some days you don’t,” he said after a lengthy discussion with his team after it ended
“When you get to this point in the season, you have to have your best effort all the time and we didn’t get that today. I’m pleased that we didn’t quit as we battled to the very end, but the odds of winning go way down when you give up a multiple-run inning.
“We weren’t as good at the plate as we could have been, but that five-run inning for them was huge and very hard for us to overcome.
“We made it close with the two-run homer in the seventh to get us within one and we had our leading home run hitter at the plate when the game ended. She hit a couple of foul balls in left that may have cleared the fenced and the one she hit to end the game was caught in center against the fence, so it wasn’t like she wasn’t trying,” Dorris added.
Kinley Ervin was the winning pitcher as she went the distance and allowd all four runs on seven hits. She also had eight strikeouts and walked two.
Maddie Bowman was the losing pitcher as she gave up the first four runs in the third on just two hits, but was replaced by Faith Brown with the bases loaded and nobody out.
She was also the cleanup hitter who made the final out to end the game.
Reagan Pennington reached on an infield single with one out in the third and later scored the first run on a single by Brown as the Lady Cougars had a 1-0 lead at that point.
The Lady Bucs then answered the bell with their five-run inning as Izzy Messer had the big hit with a two-run double while Brooke Watson drove in another run with a single. Gracie Wickham grounded to the pitcher for the first out, but it also drove in a run while the last one scored on a Goodpasture error.
Traci Elrod had a one-out double in the fifth and scored Goodpasture’s second run when a fly was dropped in left to make it 5-2.
It stayed that way until the seventh.
Pennington reached on a one-out single and scored ahead of a two-run homer to left-center by Addi Ruffin.
Ervin then got Brown on a fly to left for the second out before Bowman flied to center to the end game.
Pennington and Ruffin both had two hits for Goodpasture while Messer was the only Lady Buc with two.
Trinity Norton’s leadoff single in the third and Watson’s RBI-single in that same inning were the only other hits for the Lady Bucs.
Goodpasture left six runners stranded while Boyd Buchanan had five.
GOODPASTURE 001 010 2 – 4 7 3
BOYD BUCHANAN 005 000 x – 5 4 1
Bowman, Brown (3) and Crocker; Ervin and Sundstrom.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)