Most people who have any knowledge about the Chattanooga softball community know that East Hamilton senior Yulai Woodruff is one of the best around. She’s been injured part of the time and missed some key games, but when she’s on, she’s hard to beat.
Her coaches were hesitant to say that Tuesday’s game against Ooltewah was her best, but it was close.
Facing the Lady Owls in the District 6-4A tournament winner’s bracket Tuesday evening at Warner Park’s Frost Stadium, Woodruff was almost unhittable. As a result, the Lady Hurricanes will play for a tournament championship on Wednesday following Tuesday’s 7-0 shutout.
“I feel good as I helped my team qualify for the region. Hopefully, we can also advance to the state,” the slender 17-year-old said following Tuesday’s shutout.
“It seemed like all of my pitches were working and my team had my back with strong hitting and solid defense. I got lucky as I threw too many pitches down the middle, but I’m happy that we won,” she nodded.
It was another happy occasion for East Hamilton coach Norma Nelson, who recorded career win number 901 with this latest victory. She didn’t have a whole lot to say, but made it clear in a hurry that she was thrilled to see her ace pitching the way she did.
“I thought we did everything well today and that’s what you have to do to advance at this point,” she began after her team had improved to 20-9 with their fourth straight win and third straight victory over their rival Lady Owls.
“We got off to a good start in the first inning and just kept hitting. And it seems like we saw the Yulai of old. It’s been about three weeks since she pitched, but I thought she threw it well and only had 90 pitches,” Nelson nodded.
Ooltewah coach Jon Massey has a young and really talented team, but they had no answer for Woodruff, who finished the day with nine strikeouts and had seven in the first nine hitters she faced.
“We struck out way too much today, but we can’t afford to dwell on this game,” he said after his team dropped to 26-7 and snapped a two-game winning streak.
“And we can’t afford to make that many errors as it’s hard to beat anyone when you play like that. We’ll show up again tomorrow as I expect our best effort. We have to be inspired and ready, but regardless, we will play again next week.
“We needed our best effort to win today’s game and just didn’t have it, but tomorrow is a new day,” he smiled.
Walks to losing pitcher Jaeda Tucker in the first and fourth innings were the only base runners for the Owls up that point. Savannah Mays broke up the no-hitter with a double into the right-field corner, but was left stranded when Woodruff got a swinging third strike to end that threat.
Keely Miller had a leadoff walk in the sixth and was sacrificed to second by Kayleigh Balla before a single by Kaylin Leblanc put runners on the corners with one out. Woodruff never flinched as she struck out Tucker on three pitches before getting a grounder to second from Hailey Schmidt to leave those two stranded.
Meanwhile, the Lady Hurricane offense went to work right off the bat as Jada Rutley led off with a single and advanced on a wild pitch before scoring the first run on a single by Bailey Poschke. The next two hitters were retired, but Madilyn Evans singled up the middle to plate Poschke.
Sara Farris had a one-out single in the third and scored on a two-out double by Evans, but the inning ended when Evans got thrown out at third trying to stretch the hit into a triple.
It was still a relatively-close game after four innings with East Hamilton up 3-0, but the wheels totally came off and the train jumped off the track for the Lady Owls in the fifth.
East Hamilton batted around and scored four runs on just two hits, but they completely took advantage of four Ooltewah errors – one by each of the Lady Owls infielders – to put the game away.
Woodruff retired the side in order in the seventh to preserve the shutout.
Rutley and Evans both had two hits for the Lady Canes while Mays and Leblanc had the only two hits for Ooltewah.
Woodruff finished her complete game with no runs on two hits while walking three and striking out nine. Tucker took the loss after allowing seven runs on nine hits with one walk and five strikeouts in five innings. Schmidt pitched the sixth for the Lady Owls and allowed a walk, but no hits and no runs.
The Bradley Bearettes defeated Howard by a 12-2 final in Tuesday’s first game and will play Ooltewah in Wednesday’s first game, weather permitting. East Hamilton will then face that winner for the tournament championship.
OOLTEWAH 000 000 0 – 0 2 4
EAST HAMILTON 201 040 x – 7 9 0
Tucker, Schmidt (6) and Newell; Woodruff and Farris.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)