The Porters Chapel softball team went blow for blow with the bigger and more experienced Park Place Academy Thursday night.

But one bad inning would doom them in the end.

The Lady Eagles rallied from an early 2-0 deficit to tie the game in the bottom of the first, but an explosive 8-run fourth inning pushed the Lady Crusaders ahead for a 14-4 win.

“It was the best pitching we’ve seen so far, and of course the most solid team we’ve seen so far,” head coach Amanda Yocum said. “I’ve got five upperclassmen and then everybody else is ninth (grade) or below, so it’s becoming a little bit of a mental game.”

PCA relinquished two quick runs in the first inning, but quickly answered with back-to-back base hits by Raylee Barwick and Savanna King. After both players stole their respective bases to put runners on second and third, Lyndse Morgan poked a ground ball through the second baseman’s legs to plate two runs and tie the game.

Park Place scored twice more in the top of the second, but the Lady Eagles scratched across another run on a slap single by Anna Beth Miller to climb within one. It would be as close as they would get.

The Lady Crusaders exploded in the fourth inning with eight runs, effectively putting the game out of reach for Porters Chapel. And while a loss is still a loss, Yocum said she is seeing significant growth from her team compared to last season’s start.

“Coming from last year to this year, we’re already seeing the ball better and hitting the ball better. A couple of key hits that they made some great plays on would have helped, maybe changed the mentality a little bit, but I’m pleased,” Yocum said. “You never want to lose by 10, but anybody that was here saw that it went down to the wire.”

The team is now 2-3, but all three of those losses have come from the hands of bigger schools. Park Place Academy is a Class AA program, and Porters Chapel has only played one Class A school this season — a game in which they won.

Yocum believes this type of early competition will only pay dividends down the road for her club as they enter district play.

“Most of our schedule is all AA schools,” she said. “We’re trying to play as tough a competition as we can so we’ll be ready.”