CHARLESTON, Tenn. -- The Lady Mustangs opened their district schedule in a big way on a sunny, but windy afternoon at Larry Haney Field with a solid 8-0 win over Cleveland.
Ryan “Boogs” Presswood got the complete game shutout for the Feisty Fillies with throwing with a three hit effort that included eight strikeouts and no walks.
Landri Nelson, Brylee Cisco and Alison Farnsworth were the only Lady Raiders to reach base on the afternoon.
Klaire Hall took the loss for the Lady Raiders (3-5, 0-1 District 5-4A) giving up six hits with one homer, a strikeout and three free passes in 3 and 1/3 innings of work. Huntlee Dennison took over in the bottom of the fifth and gave up a single hit and a pair of walks
“'Boogs' Pitched an excellent ballgame. Her ball was moving, she was changing speeds,” praised Lady Mustangs head coach Lauren Limburg. “It was just a team effortEverybody stepped up. Everybody contributed.
After a pair of scoreless innings, the Fillies (10-2, 1-0) woke up in a big way in the bottom of the third scoring five times off four hits. They were helped along with a pair of walks that led two runs.
Nessa Byers led off with a single to center field and moved to second thanks to a perfectly placed sacrifice bunt from Karly Blackwell. Back-to-back bases on balls put a Lady Mustangs on every base. Morgan Rice did the job with the second bunt of the inning that scored Byers. Amy Benson raced to the plate when the throw home got away. Presswood helped her own cause with and RBI sacrifice fly to center to make it a 3-0 game.
Moments later, Brylie Davis added two more runs to the board with a blast that easily cleared the right-center field fence upping the advantage to 5-0.
Three runs in the bottom half of the fourth sealed the win for the Lady 'Stangs.
Byers opened with her second safety of the day, a three bagger to left. She scored on a Blackwell infield single. Benson laid down a sacrifice bunt and headed home on a two base hit off the bat of Alyssa Davenport, who later put the final run of the day up on a fielder's choice.
“We left a zero up there. You can't do much when you don't put a run up. Ryan is a competitor and I didn't think we made adjustments. The first time through the lineup, OK. The second time through and the third time we needed to be making adjustments to make something happen. We needed to put some runs on the board and we needed to play defense,” said a disappointed Lady Raiders head coach Leeann Shurette afterward.
“I thought our pitchers did OK. We just didn't make some plays. We needed to get the lead out and things like that. It's stuff we need to clean up. Obviously, I was not happy with it. I'm a fighter. Lets' go. Let's compete. When we're trying as hard as we can that's OK. Own it and let's fix it. I think when you lose you learn. We learned some things today.”
The Lady Raiders will be in action Friday and Saturday at the Wildcat Classic in Hixson.
The Lady Mustangs hit the field again Friday on the road against Chattanooga Christian and return home Monday with a non-district matchup against Soddy-Daisy.
“Any district win is a great win and I'm just really proud of our girls. I thought they showed great pitch selection at the plate. We got some key hits and were able to score some runners in scoring position,” said Limburg. “Overall I felt like we played great defense. The wind was kind of blowing everywhere and to be able to communicate and catch the pop ups ad bloopers was a key to our success.”
Cleveland 000 000 0 — 0 3 2
Walker Valley 005 300 x — 8 7 0
WP: Boogs Presswood; LP: Klaire Hall; HR: Brylee Davis (WV); 3B: Nessa Byers (WV); 2B: Allyssa Davenport (WV). HIGHLIGHTS: Karly Blackwell RS, Amy Benson RS, Davenport 2RS RBI, Morgan Rice 2-3 2 RBI, Presswood 2RBI, Davis RS 2RBI, Addyson Trew RS, Byers 2-3 2RS. Records: Cleveland 3-5, 0-1; Walker Valley 10-2, 1-0.
(Contact Richard Roberts at richardvol55@yahoo.com)