West Stanly tops North, Mt. Pleasant wins

By Octavia Trammell

Sunday, May 11, 2008 May 12, 2008 02:15 pm

— Solid pitching by West Stanly’s Emily Huneycutt held North Stanly to only one run as the Lady Colts took a 4-1 win in the semi-finals of the RRC Tournament.
In an unusual, but exciting game, there were many hits, but not by the batters. During the game, four runners were hit and pitcher Morgan Fraley was smacked by two strong line drives.
“Morgan is a tough kid, she was hit hard twice and not many players could get up from that,” West Stanly Coach Wesley Kidd said.
The Lady Colts got on the board first in the bottom of the first inning when Emily Huneycutt hit a rocket to left field bringing two runners home.
The next inning was dominated by the pitchers, both striking out every batter that stepped up to the plate.
After a monstrous triple by North Stanly’s Megan Morris in the third inning, the Lady Comets finally had someone on base. The next two batters were walked loading the bases. Morris then scored North’s first and only run on a wild pitch. Two players still remained on base but the high hopes of North Stanly were soon crushed by pitcher Emily Huneycutt, who struck out the next three batters.
“That was one big problem of ours,” North Stanly Coach Greg Speight said. “We left a lot of runners on base and we could have easily scored more runs.”
Scoring is exactly what they lacked in this game. Defense controlled the tempo of the whole game and pitcher Emily Huneycutt seemed like she owned the mound.
“She didn’t even know she was going to pitch today,” Coach Kidd said. “Our pitcher (Anisha Smith) got hurt last game and Emily had to step up and pitch. The team had confidence in her and were behind her 100 percent. That’s what made this game great.”
Base hits were all West Stanly needed to close-out the game. In the last innings they did just that, scoring two runs on solid hitting making the score 4-1. Although they were up three runs, the defense of West Stanly did not budge. The last two innings were six batters up, six batters down and West Stanly sealed the win.
In the first semi-final, Mt. Pleasant defeated Forest Hills, 10-6, to advance to the championships against West Stanly.
The Lady Yellow Jackets jumped out in the fourth inning, scoring three runs to take a 6-1 lead.
Errors in the bottom of the fifth sparked the beginning of a great comeback. In the pivotal fifth, the Lady Tiger’s Allison Starnes had a giant hit, bringing two runners home. That hit was followed by a two-run homer by Jocelyn Parnell as the Lady Tigers scored eight runs to take a 9-6 lead.
Mt. Pleasant added one run in the sixth inning to close out the 10-6 win.

Octavia Trammell is a sports writer with The Stanly News & Press. Call her (704) 982-2121.

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