SMYRNA – The Silverdale Lady Seahawks might have been down, but they were never out.
Wednesday was a long day for everyone involved in the TSSAA Spring Fling as all softball and baseball from Tuesday was cancelled by heavy rain.
The Lady Seahawks played their first game here at Cedar Stone Park and it didn’t go very well as the Donelson Christian Lady Wildcats had a cakewalk, winning by a lopsided score of 10-0 as they scored the game-ending runs with nobody out in the sixth.
It would have been easy for the two-time defending D-II-A state champs to feel sorry for themselves and give up, but that was the last thing on their minds.
They battled back through the losers bracket to defeat Christian Academy of Knoxville by an 8-0 final before eliminating University School of Jackson by a 6-4 final in a game where the Lady Seahawks trailed 4-1 in the sixth, only to score five runs in the bottom of that inning to stay alive and advance to Thursday’s state title game at MTSU against that same Donelson Christian team.
“That may have been the worst game I’ve ever seen a Silverdale team play,” head coach Jackie Freeland said after that first loss.
“We were really uptight and not loose at all, but the good news is we’re still alive. Those other guys really played a good game, but we just need to come together and do our thing,” she added.
Freeland may have been a little bit worried after that opening loss, but her kids shifted gears and took charge to keep winning.
“It was a little nerve-wracking at times, but I’m so proud of the fight we showed to get back in it. The good news is that we never gave up. Now we just need to do what it takes to win tomorrow. We just need to have fun and stay loose. If we do that, all will be okay,” she added after her team had improved to 29-8 with those last two wins.
Donelson Christian is the real deal as they improved to 31-5 with Wednesday’s two wins that included a 12-5 victory over USJ that sent the Lady Bruins to the loser’s bracket.
DCA grabbed a 1-0 lead in the first inning before making it 3-0 after two. Two more scored in the fourth before a three-spot in the fifth made it 8-0. They sent three hitters to the plate in the sixth to win without any outs being recorded.
Yaria Dawson, Averie Belton and Gracyn White all had two hits as DCA collected 10 for the game.
Dawson had a two-run inside the park home run in the fourth while Belton’s RBI-single in the sixth ended the game.
Meanwhile, Silverdale was limited to just two hits by Bailey Goad, who had no walks and five strikeouts in going the distance.
She retired the first 11 hitters she faced before Braylee Raby broke up the no-hitter with a two-out single in the fourth. Emry Masterson ripped a two-out triple down the line in left in the sixth, but was stranded when Jaliyah Whitaker grounded out to third to end that threat.
Thursday’s DCA-Silverdale final is the second game of the day following the AA title game between St. Benedict and Chattanooga Christian.
Should the Lady Seahawks win that first game at 12:30 local time, a second game would follow at 5:30.
SILVERDALE 000 000 – 0 2 3
DONELSON CHRISTIAN 120 232 – 10 10 0
Cox, Weber (5) and Hensley; Goad and Scales.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)