Lady Eagles win warmup for South State tournament
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, September 17, 2003
[9/16/03]Porters Chapel Academy got the game it wanted, as well as the practice and effort in its tuneup for the South State tournament. Winning was just a bonus.
Lindsey McCool went 2-for-3 with a pair of RBI singles, and drove in the go-ahead run in the fifth inning as PCA (19-6) beat Riverfield 3-2 Monday at Bazinsky Park.
PCA pitcher Lauren Johnson also went 2-for-3, with an RBI and a run scored, and scattered five hits over seven innings to earn the win. Linzi McKinney had an RBI single for Riverfield (5-3).
“It was a great tuneup game, because we faced two of the best pitchers we’ve seen all year long,” PCA coach Kevin Griffin said. “And when we’re hitting the ball as hard as we did against these girls, it kind of gives us a little confidence going into next week.”
The game was essentially meaningless for both teams, and was scheduled as a last-minute tuneup for the South State tournament which begins on Wednesday.
PCA will face Huntington at 2:20 p.m. Wednesday at Amite School Center in Liberty. A win in that game will advance the Lady Eagles to the winner’s bracket on Saturday morning, while a loss would force them into a loser’s bracket game later that afternoon.
“Any time you play in a tournament, you’ve got to take care of business in the first game or it’s going to be a long road,” PCA coach Kevin Griffin said. “Right now we’re sitting in a position where if we win our first two games, we automatically advance to the class tournament.”
The way the Lady Eagles are playing heading into South State, Griffin shouldn’t have much to worry about.
PCA is hitting .340 as a team, seems to have cut down on the fielding errors and mental mistakes that plagued the team earlier in the season, and has beaten strong teams from Franklin, Deer Creek, and Riverfield in the past week.
Add in a pair of solid pitchers in Johnson and Betsy Bryan, the Lady Eagles seem poised for a run deep into the tournament. Johnson is 11-6 with a 0.67 ERA, while Bryan boasts a 7-1 record and 1.00 ERA. Opponents are hitting just .165 against the two PCA starters.
“A couple of games I didn’t think we had reached our highest point, but the last few games I think we have. I think we’re going to be all right,” Johnson said.
Riverfield was the latest team to have its bats silenced by Johnson.
The Lady Raiders managed an unearned run in the second inning to tie the game at 1-1, then another in the top of the fifth to tie it at 2-2. PCA had taken an early lead on McCool’s RBI single in the first inning, and regained it in the third on Johnson’s RBI base hit.
McCool came through again in the bottom of the fifth. Amy Rutledge had singled with one out, then advanced to third on a passed ball and a groundout. McCool then came up and lined a base hit to left field to plate the go-ahead run and put PCA ahead 3-2.
Johnson pitched out of a second-and-third, one-out jam in the sixth inning, then retired Riverfield in order in the seventh to get the win.