Soddy Daisy softball coach Chris Day wasn’t the happiest guy late Friday afternoon after his Lady Trojans had split their two games at the Choo Choo Classic softball tournament being played at East Hamilton, but he felt much better on Saturday after his team posted a 5-1 victory over the host Lady Hurricanes in the first game of the day.
Four games had originally been planned for Saturday, but only two were played as the tournament wrapped just shortly past noon.
Boyd Buchanan was the leader with three wins in four games while Soddy Daisy and Cleveland both won two. East Hamilton had one win on Friday while Hixson was the only team without a win in the two-day event.
The Lady Trojans made a couple of harmless errors, but their pitching was solid and they got some timely hits. That’s all it took for Day to feel a lot better.
“That’s more like it,” he began after his team finished the weekend with an overall record of 17-11.
“It makes a difference when your pitcher is throwing strikes. We also got some timely hits. I think we’re beginning to come together, but we just need to build on what we’ve done this weekend.
“I feel a whole lot better with how we played today, but it’s always good when you can limit a good team like East Hamilton to just one run,” he added.
East Hamilton is hurting physically as several of their players are sidelined by injuries, including ace pitcher Yulai Woodruff. East Hamilton coach Norma Nelson was more concerned about her team’s lack of hitting and inability to score runs.
“You don’t win many games when you don’t score more than one run,” she said matter of factly after her team dropped to 16-9 for the season.
“We can’t even get a bunt down and you have to be able to do that. We just have to be more fundamentally sound, but I really don’t know why we’re not hitting any better. It’s getting close to post-season tournament time and our goal at this point is to just keep getting better,” she said.
Izzy Webb was the winning pitcher for the Lady Trojans as she went the distance and allowed the one run on just three hits while walking one and getting three strikeouts.
Madilyn Evans, the only East Hamilton player with two hits, got her first to lead off the second and eventually scored on a Soddy Daisy error, but that was all as Webb maintained near-perfect control, despite leaving a runner on base in each of the first four innings.
Soddy Daisy had runners on base in every inning, but it wasn’t until the third when they finally broke through and scored.
Skylar Gooden reached on a one-out error before Lily Blaylock reached on a perfect bunt. Both later scored, Gooden on a two-out single by Ava Blue and Blaylock on a double by Webb.
Then in the fourth, the Lady Trojans put two more runs on the board on two hits. Nevaeh Dyer got hit by a pitch to start the inning and later scored on a single by Gooden. Chloe McDonald had the second single of the inning and later scored on a steal when Blaylock was thrown out at first on a passed ball following the third strike.
Then in the bottom of the fifth with the time limit expired, Soddy Daisy added its final run. Blue got hit by a pitch before Webb and Abby Standefer both singled to load the bases. Dyer then got the RBI with a bases-loaded walk when the game was called with nobody out.
Webb and Standefer both had two hits for the Lady Trojans as they finished with eight for the game. Evans had two hits for East Hamilton while a first-inning single from Sara Farris was the only other hit for the Lady Hurricanes.
While Webb was the winning pitcher, Bri Nichols was the loser after allowing all five runs on eight hits. She also had three walks while striking out one.
EAST HAMILTON 010 00 – 1 3 1
SODDY DAISY 002 21 – 5 8 2
Nichols and Farris; Webb and Woodward.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)