Soddy Daisy’s Lady Trojans were down, but never out.
Facing the never-say-die Hixson Lady Wildcats in the District 6-AAA softball championship game at Signal Mountain Wednesday night, the Lady Trojans had their moments when they weren’t very impressive and certain not very inspired. But when all was said and done, they were able to somehow and someway find a way to win.
It took an extra inning, but the Lady Trojans improved to 20-10-1 with an improbable come-from-behind 10-9 victory for their third straight district tournament championship.
Rain was all around the area for the entire game and it rained on several occasions, but never hard enough to suspend play. And most importantly, there was no lightning.
The Lady Trojans had clearly been the dominant team in the district all season as they run-ruled everyone during the regular season. But when push came to shove, the Lady Wildcats just wanted to show they are much better than people think and they gave Soddy Daisy all they wanted and more in their last two games.
The Lady Trojans had won by a dominant 17-4 fashion in the first game, but Hixson played well in the winner’s-bracket final on Monday before losing 2-0.
And now two days later, those same Hixson girls had leads of 2-0, 6-2 and 9-2 before the Lady Trojans got up off the deck and proved they have a pretty good team as well.
Soddy Daisy has a bunch of good hitters, some with the ability to hit the long ball. The long ball was their friend on Wednesday as they slugged four round-trippers in the final three innings, including a monster shot over the scoreboard in left on the first pitch of the eighth inning from senior Regan Rowan.
Rowan now has seven homers for the season, but none have been any more important or better timed than this last one.
“I just got my pitch that was high and inside and I knew it was gone as soon as I hit it. I told my teammates before I went to bat that I could pull us through,” the senior who is planning to play softball at Carson Newman next year expressed following the game.
Soddy Daisy coach Kelsey Nunley-Moore has been around a bunch of exciting games in her time as a player and now as a coach, but she’ll be hard-pressed to come up with one that was any more exciting than this last one.
“I’m still not breathing,” she said as her team went to home plate to accept their tournament championship plaque.
“I must admit that I was quite nervous when we got down 9-2 and I just asked my girls if they were gonna fight or just quit. We put ourselves in quite a predicament, but I’m just proud they finally decided to battle and it paid off.
“I don’t know why, but we seem to play better when we’re behind. We beat Hixson pretty good during the regular season, but they came into this tournament believing they could beat us as they simply had nothing to lose. They gave us all we wanted and more in these last two games,” the Soddy Daisy coach concluded with a smile.
Hixson coach Ricky Ritchie knows this last loss really hurts, but the season isn’t over just yet.
“We still have more softball to play. I was proud of my girls as they never gave up. We knew that we had to overachieve a little bit today and I think we did, but we aren’t the old Hixson team from years past.
“We had planned to be in this game all year and it turned out to be a great game, regardless of which team won. We haven’t been in this situation since 2012 when we finished second, so I’m really proud of how far we’ve come since then,” he added.
Allison McDaniel singled to lead off the game for Hixson before Ryleigh Quarles reached on a fielder’s choice. Gracie Quarles then doubled to left center to put runners on second and third before a two-out single from Meg Kernea drove in the first two runs for Hixson.
Lily Blaylock and Abby Faires both singled to get the Lady Trojans started in the bottom of the first. Rowan reached on a fielder’s choice before Hannah Patterson drove in the first run with a single while Brooke Raines tied it with a double to center.
Hixson added two hits in the second, but benefitted more from three walks and a hit batter to score four more runs. Two of those runs scored on wild pitches as Rowan clearly wasn’t having her best stuff in the circle.
Nobody scored in the third, fourth or fifth innings, but Hixson put together three hits to score three runs in the sixth as their 6-2 lead stretched to 9-2. Kernea and Miyell McCullough both had run-scoring singles while the third run scored on Soddy’s third error of the game.
At that point, it looked very much like Hixson might pull the upset and force a second game, but the Lady Trojans had other ideas.
Raines led off the inning with a single and scored ahead of Ava Blue’s two-run homer to center. Faires followed five batters later with a three-run blast to make it 9-7 and all of a sudden, things got really interesting.
Sophomore Izzy Webb, who had relieved Rowan in the third inning, allowed a leadoff walk to Chloe Turner in the seventh and then a leadoff single to Gracie Quarles in the eighth, but nobody scored in those two innings for Hixson.
Patterson led off Soddy’s half of the seventh with a single and was on base when Raines crushed a 1-2 pitch for a two-run homer to knot the score at 9-9.
Webb doubled with two outs before Skylar Gooden reached on a Hixson boot before Blaylock got hit by a pitch to load the bases. Faires then ripped a hard grounder to Gracie Quarles at short, who made a brilliant play to end the inning after making the error that kept Soddy’s inning alive.
Hixson got the leadoff hitter on base in the eighth and Quarles went to second on a sacrifice bunt by Lexi Turner, but Webb then got infield pops from Kernea and McCullough to end the inning, setting the stage for Rowan’s blast in the eighth.
Raines finished the game with four hits and three runs batted in for Soddy Daisy as the Lady Trojans had 18 hits for the game. Gooden followed with three while Blaylock, Faires, Rowan, Patterson and Webb all had two apiece.
McDaniel, Gracie Quarles, Kernea and McCullough all had two hits for Hixson as the Lady Wildcats finished with 10.
Webb, just a sophomore, improved to 9-1 with Wednesday’s win after allowing three runs on five hits while walking one, striking out five and hitting one.
Turner was the loser after allowing all 18 hits and all 10 runs while going seven-plus innings.
Hixson is now 17-13 and will travel to the winner between Sequoyah and Heritage in Monday’s region opener while Soddy Daisy will face the loser at home on Monday.
HIXSON 240 003 00 – 9 10 1
SODDY DAISY 200 005 21 – 10 18 3
Turner and McDaniel; Rowan, Webb (3) and Blue.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)