The Warren Central Lady Vikes didn’t seem fazed about the prospect of having to travel four hours to Tupelo and sweep a doubleheader to keep their season alive.

After all, they’ve been there and done that already. Just last week, in fact.
Tupelo beat Warren Central 5-3 in Game 1 of their Class 6A softball playoff series on Tuesday. Game 2 of the best-of-three series is Thursday at 5 p.m., and if a Game 3 is necessary it’ll be played immediately afterward. It’s the same setup for the Lady Vikes (11-14) as their first-round series against Southaven, when they dropped the first game and then won the next two.

“With us, it’s like our backs are against the wall so let’s see what we can do,” Warren Central coach Dana McGivney said. “The same thing happened last weekend, although we got to play at home for those two. I don’t think it’ll make that much of a difference where we play. We’ve just got to come out and do what we’re capable of.”

Paris Lehman went 2-for-4 with a double, triple and two runs scored for Tupelo (17-4) in Game 1, and Ivy Watts doubled twice and drove in three runs.

Tupelo scored four runs in the second inning to take command of Game 1, and then both pitchers took over after a wild start. Neither team scored after the third inning. Tupelo’s Tay Wren racked up 13 strikeouts, and only allowed three hits and two walks.

“Other than one inning where we let them score four runs, we played a good game,” McGivney said. “We’ve just got to hit better. We swung at pitches we don’t normally swing at and we’ve got to lay off those pitches and play our game. We let them get us out of what we want to do offensively. Defensively, we played pretty well.”

Matching Wren in the circle was Annalyn Nevels. The eighth-grader has been a pleasant surprise for Warren Central during its stretch run. She has a 3.31 ERA in eight games and settled in after a shaky start in Game 1.

Nevels allowed eight hits and three walks, but also shut out the Golden Wave for the last five innings.

Unlike most softball teams that use one primary pitcher, Nevels’ late-season emergence has allowed the Lady Vikes to develop a promising young staff. Fellow eighth-grader Maddie McAdam, as well as sophomores Kaylee Hoeft, Kallie Page and Bri Daughtry have all seen significant time in the circle this season.

“We’re just trying to find what works. In the last week of the regular season we pitched two eighth-graders and it seemed to work really well,” McGivney said. “The week before that against Richland we pitched an eighth-grader and she pitched well. The next Monday and Tuesday we pitched eighth-graders and they did a good job. So we decided that that’s what we’re going to go with in the playoffs.”

No matter what happens Thursday, the emergence of the young pitchers has given the Lady Vikes a glimpse at the future. They’ll lose five seniors whenever this playoff run ends, including multiple-year starters Cocoa Fultz, Kaitlyn Mitchell and April Lynn, but have a strong nucleus coming back in 2019.

They’ve also gone from pitcher being a question mark this season to a potential strength for the next couple of years.

“We didn’t really know who was going to pitch for us. We definitely didn’t know it was going to be two eighth-graders in the postseason,” McGivney said with a laugh. “But as the season went on that’s what happened. It’s kind of fun to see that the future looks good, but right now we’ve made it into the playoffs and already gotten through one round, and that’s a big step.”

MHSAA SOFTBALL PLAYOFFS
Warren Central vs. Tupelo
Game 1: Tupelo 5, Warren Central 3
Game 2: Thursday, 5 p.m., at Tupelo
Game 3: Thursday, 7:30 p.m., at Tupelo (if necessary)