The Ooltewah Lady Owls have won a bunch of softball games this spring, but they can’t seem to find an answer for the East Hamilton Lady Hurricanes.
Ooltewah is now 27-8 for the season after splitting two games on Wednesday, but half of those defeats have come against the Lady Canes, who improved to 21-9 following Wednesday’s 11-1 romp over Ooltewah in the District 6-AAAA game at Warner Park’s Frost Stadium.
Rain had been predicted throughout the day on Wednesday and while the wet stuff was never really a factor, a light mist fell during most of the game.
East Hamilton senior Yulai Woodruff pitched her second consecutive two-hitter for the win, but it was totally different than Tuesday’s game when her team prevailed by a 7-0 final.
The Lady Owls defeated Bradley by a 4-0 final in the loser’s bracket final in Wednesday’s first game and got back-to-back doubles from Kaylin Leblanc and Jaeda Tucker for a quick 1-0 lead, but that was it as the Lady Canes totally dominated the rest of the way before the game was called with nobody out in the bottom of the third inning.
East Hamilton coach Norma Nelson, who now has 902 wins as a high school coach, was all smiles again and didn’t seem to bothered by Ooltewah’s early success.
“That was just another awesome team win,” she said as she spoke to her team following this latest win.
“They scored early, but Yulai totally shut them down as she pitched really well again. Now we’re the district champions. This is the first step toward our ultimate goal and that’s advancing to the state tournament in Murfreesboro.
“We just want to keep playing softball. I wasn’t really worried when they scored in the first inning because I had total confidence that we would come back and score too. But we get to host a region game on Monday against Cleveland and we just want to keep winning,” Nelson added.
Ooltewah coach Jon Massey knew that his team was facing a difficult challenge for the second straight day. He’s just glad that his season continues and that his team will practice again on Friday.
“Our main goal today was just to have fun, but we knew what we were up against,” he said as players gathered their equipment following the game.
“The good news is that we get to practice again on Friday and play again on Monday. It’s just a matter of surviving and advancing, but we know we have to play well as we’re facing a good Walker Valley team. We’re just moving forward day by day right now,” he smiled.
While Leblanc and Tucker had the only hits and provided the only run for the Lady Owls early, a walk to Savannah Mays in the first and another to Tucker with one out in the third were the only other base runners for Ooltewah.
It didn’t take East Hamilton long to respond as leadoff hitter Jada Rutley got an infield single to lead off the Lady Cane first. She stole second and went to third on a bad throw by the Ooltewah catcher before scoring the tying run on another infield boot.
Starting pitcher Hailey Schmidt then escaped further damage with two straight pops to the infield, but the second inning was a totally different story.
East Hamilton sent 13 batters to the plate and eight of them scored. Schmidt was relieved by Emmerson Reed with nobody out after facing five hitters and she didn’t fare much better as she walked three, allowed three hits and had two wild pitches that allowed runs to score.
That offensive attack continued in the third as Rutley got her third straight infield hit, stole second and went to third on a wild pitch before scoring on another wild pitch. Catcher Sara Farris then ended the game with a single to right for the 10-run final margin.
Rutley had three hits, stole three bases and scored three times to lead the Lady Canes offense while Bri Nichols, Madilyn Evans, Faith Wadley, Kat Woody, Woodruff and Farris all had one hit each.
Woodruff finished the short game by allowing two hits and one run while walking two and recording six strikeouts.
Ooltewah is now 27-8 overall and will travel to Walker Valley on Monday while East Hamilton improves to 21-9 with its fifth straight win and will host Cleveland on Monday.
OOLTEWAH 100 – 1 2 3
EAST HAMILTON 182 – 11 9 0
Schmidt, Reed (2) and Newell; Woodruff and Farris.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)