Colonels Hold Off Warriors In Softball

Posted: April 22, 2016
By MARK SAWYER
The Winchester Star

STEPHENS CITY — Offense has been a huge key to success during the first half of the season for both the Sherando and James Wood softball teams, but it was pitching that was on display as the Colonels won 2-1 on Thursday at Sherando Park.

Though the Warriors have ridden a roller coaster of consistency they have won seven of their 13 games and have scored double figures six times, including a mindboggling 35 runs in their last two games.

The Colonels offense has been just as potent, winning 10 of their 13 games including a nine-game winning streak that ended Monday with a loss to Woodgrove. Wood has scored double figures seven times and at least seven runs in 10 games.

However, offensive fireworks were nowhere to be found when the two teams got together for the first time this season Thursday night.

Instead pitchers Lani Spielman (Wood) and Marissa Webb (Sherando) stole the show, dominating both offenses all night long.

The two matched two-hit shutouts through six innings before a wild seventh inning would decide the game, and even the final out was out of the ordinary.

In the end Wood scored two unearned runs in the top of the seventh and then held off a Sherando seventh-inning rally to emerge with a Northwestern District victory.

“It’s always a game like that. It’s always right down to the wire, who makes a play and who doesn’t when these two teams play,” James Wood coach Todd Baker said. “You kind of felt like it was going to come down to whoever made that mistake.”

Webb took the hard-luck loss but was masterful for six innings. She allowed three hits, walked four and struck out four. She worked out of a first-and-third jam in the third and a first-and-second, one-out mess in the sixth.

Wood (11-3, 3-0 district) hit the ball sharply in the seventh, and it paid off.

Pinch-hitter Lauren King led off the inning by reaching on an error and Sarah Garis followed with a walk, which ended the evening for Webb.

Taylor Woolsey dropped down a perfect sacrifice for the Colonels, putting two runners in scoring position, and then Courteney Harper was hit by a pitch to load the bases.

Wood finally got on the board when Haley Kaiser hit into a fielder’s choice that Warriors second baseman Madison Clarke nearly turned into an inning-ending double play. However, Kaiser just beat the throw to first, allowing King to make it 1-0.

Lindsey Anderson followed by ripping a rocket ground ball that took a bad hop and was misplayed by the Warriors, scoring Garis to make it 2-0.

“I don’t even want to call those mistakes because to James Wood’s credit they put hard-hit balls in play,” Sherando coach Clarence Smith said. “That’s more a testament to James Wood to make things happen and we’ll live with that. I feel like that was a fun game.”

Spielman (6-2) was dominant in the early innings. She registered eight strikeouts in the first three innings and had 10 for the game. She worked six innings, allowed one run, scattered four hits and walked two.

Sherando (7-7, 1-2) got two of its four hits to open that last frame. River Baird opened up the inning with a double to left center and she came around to score on an RBI single off the bat of Webb to make it 2-1.