This afternoon may have been the Taylor County softball team’s first trip to Lexington for the KHSAA State Tournament, but don’t tell them that as they played inspired and took advantage of every opportunity that arose as they built a 5-0 lead early and survived a late rally by Letcher County to win their first-round game, 5-3.
The game, which was supposed to be played Friday afternoon, but was postponed to this morning because of weather issues actually gave the girls an extra day to relax after being inspired by the boys (baseball team) Thursday evening were all fired up for a 10:00 am first pitch at Jon Cropp stadium.
On a beautifully cool early afternoon match, starter Maddie Hunt set the Cougars down on three ground outs despite allowing a two out single. Then the Cardinals went to work on Scarlett Stamper when leadoff batter Riley Sprowles nearly decapitated the Cougar third baseman with a bullet past third which resulted in a double. After a groundout by Adelyn Bradstreet moved Sprowles to third, the centerfielder would eventually score the games first run on a wild pitch by Stamper.
After a double play erased a Cougar scoring threat in the top of the second, Stamper wasn’t so fortunate in the third when two one-out singles set up a weird play when Bradstreet hit a routine flyball to right center that was misplayed into an error allowing Claire Melton to score and Sprowles to reach third, who eventually scored on Reagan Cundiff’s single. Briley Edwards then lofted a flyball to left, which was misplayed allowing two more runs to score as Taylor County upped the lead to 5-0 after three.
Letcher County tried to respond, but bounced into another ground ball double play in the fourth inning. Still, they finally showed some life against Hunt in the fifth when two straight one-out singles (the second scored the Cougars first run) set up an RBI single by Kara Holcomb, then an RBI double by Kailey Bentley made it 5-3.
But that was it for Letcher County as they threatened again in the seventh with two on, but Hunt and the defense silenced them in the end. The righthander was pretty much in control most of the game as she was able to induce ten groundball outs of the 21 for the game and her defense was on cue much as they have been ever since the playoffs started several weeks ago.
Offensively, the Cardinals take advantage of every chance and every mistake the opposition makes as three of Taylor County’s runs were as a result of outfield errors. Sprowles and Cundiff had five hits between them and three of the teams’ five runs.
So Taylor County will attempt to reach the Final Four next Friday with an Elite Eight game tomorrow against Lawrence County at 4:00 as they continue to make school history with another state win.