Fast start, slow close

Fast start, slow close

Sports Editor SHERIDAN — For the second straight day, Marion jumped on their opponent for three runs in the first inning.

However, unlike their quarterfinal win against Lake Hamilton, the Lady Pats were unable to add any insurance runs after their initial big inning and fell to Benton in the state semifinals, 5-3.

Marion concludes its season with an 18-7 overall record, and third consecutive appearance in the round of four, a run that they share with Benton and Sheridan in Class 6A.

“It’s difficult to sit there and have the game in hand and then see it not go your way,” said Marion head coach David Horton. “We were right there close all day long, but we just couldn’t come up with that big, timely hit that we needed to get over the top.”

The Lady Pats got those three runs thanks to the longball. Marion senior Mabry Watson jumped on a 2-2 pitch for a solo home run, her ninth of the season, leading off the bottom of the first for a 1-0 lead.

Three batters later, senior Raygan Shelton added a pair when she drove in Hope Phipps and herself with a dinger of her own to push ahead 3-0.

Shelton’s slam forced Benton’s (17-7 overall) hand. Despite the early nature of the game, Lady Panther starter Emme Edmonson was taken out of the game after just four batters in favor of reliever Madi Lancaster.

All Lancaster did from that point on was pitch 6 and 2/3 innings and while she did allow nine hits and a walk, she kept Marion off of the scoreboard the rest of the way home to pick up the win.

“She changed speeds real effectively today,” Horton explained. “She dropped it down and we didn’t hit it well at all. That’s the whole purpose of the pitcher is to keep the timing off, and she did that.

We got some hits, but not enough of them at the right times.”

However, Lancaster wasn’t lights out immediately.

The first three Lady Pat batters that she faced all singled to load the bases with just one out in the first, but Lancaster got a hard-hit double play ball off the bat of McKenzie Shirley to escape any further damage. Benton was shut out until the top of the fourth when a pair of double allowed the Lady Panthers to break through against Watson, trimming the lead to 3-2 at the midway point.

The Lady Panthers joined the long distance party in the top of the sixth when they got a solo home run from Rylea Brimhall to tie the game and a two-run shot from shortstop Taylor Oglesly to claim its first lead at 5-3.

Between the second and sixth innings, Marion could only muster one hit, but that changed in the bottom of the sixth.

Trailing for the first time since an April 29 home loss to Jonesboro, Marion got consecutive singles from Haley Cook and Destiny King with just one out to bring Shirley to the plate in a big situation.

Down 0-1 in the count, Shirley hit a rocket to the right side of the field that hit King as she was running to second base and the ball was ruled dead.

However, the fast-pitch softball rules state that if the ball is put in play behind first base, it is a fair ball, as well as a live ball.

Despite that, King was called out and the ball dead, which prevented Cook from moving to third and kept Shirley on first.

“The umpire’s ruling was, and in my opinion was incorrect, but he said it got past the first baseman so it was past an infielder, but he said that the second baseman would have made the play, which wasn’t going to happen,” Horton explained. “It was hit hard, it was in the hole, it may have gotten to the wall.

I’m not sure we don’t even score a run there.”

Instead of having the bases loaded and one out with Blakeleigh Garrison up, followed by Watson, Marion now had two runners on with two outs before Garrison grounded out to the pitcher, which ensured that Benton would face Watson with nobody on in the bottom of the seventh.

Marion had one final rally in the bottom of the seventh. With one out, Morgan Weaver singled to left field, followed by a Phipps infield hit, putting the tying run on first base with Phipps.

Shelton would reach on a fielder’s choice that erased Phipps off of second and Micah Tolleson would ground out to end the game and send Benton to Fayetteville.

Marion will graduate seven seniors off of their 2016 team. That class consists of Watson, the school’s all-time leader in RBI, Weaver, Kristin Bolton, Tolleson, Josey Moix, Shelton and Shirley.

By Chuck Livingston