Photos courtesy of Johnna Morgan
Oh what a night! The Lavaca and Charleston Softball teams met last night to do battle at this years Clarksville Softball Tournament. This match up would prove to be the toughest competition that Lavaca has faced this year. Both teams battled hard and the lead changed hands several times throughout a game that took extra innings to determine a winner. At the end of regulation, which came with a degree of controversy, the score was 3-3. The game took two over time innings for Lavaca to pull out the win 5-4.
The Controversy mentioned was the ending of regulation play. Tournament rules allowed for a one hour time limit. After which the teams would go to a AAA tiebreaker, Which allows each team to start with a runner on second base. The issue at hand was that Lavaca was about to go into the bottom of the forth when the game was called. They were not allowed their last at bat. Which meant Charleston had one more at bat than Lavaca. AAA uses the NFHS rule book which states that the ending of a game requires equal number of at bats unless the home team is ahead in points. This did not happen, but since Lavaca went on to win in extra innings it becomes a mute point.
Coach Vire was pretty pumped up about the grit his team showed last night. They never quit and didn’t get wrapped up in the controversy’s, they just kept playing hard.. After the game coach had this to say, “I’m super proud of our fight tonight! We had many chances where we could have laid down and let them take it from us, but we kept battling and found a way to pull that one out. BethAnn came up big for us on the mound, she competed with every pitch, and never gave in. Her defense did a great job of backing her up and making big plays.”
With the win Lavaca advances to the semi finals game at 6:00 on field one against Mayflower. Please note the schedule change. The game was originally scheduled for 5:00 but everything was pushed back an hour, so the game is now at 6:00.
