Lady Bears and Lady Cardinals top softball standings

With two games to play before the post season Bridge City and Little Cypress Mauriceville were tied for first place in the District 19-4A softball standings. There is a very good chance the Lady Cardinals and the Lady Bears will be co-district champions when the regular season ends later this week.

Little Cypress Mauriceville won both its games last week. On Tuesday, April 11, the Lady Bears defeated the Lady Raiders 7-3 at Lumberton.

Ella Stephenson was the winning pitcher for LCM. She walked six batters but limited Lumberton to three runs only one of which was earned.

The Lady Bears jumped to a three-run lead in the top of the first inning before tallying a single run in the third and three more in the fifth. The hitting stars for LCM were Eden Frenzel going three for five, Tessa Erickson with two hits, and Ava White with two runs batted in.

On Friday, April 14, Tessa Erickson threw a one-hit shutout for Little Cypress Mauriceville in a 4-0 victory over the Jasper Lady Bulldogs. Erickson only walked one Lady Bulldog and struck out six in the win. "Tessa was looking strong tonight, hitting her spots, doing what we asked her to do, and she brought her A-game just like she does every time she steps in the circle and not much phases her," Lady Bear Coach Dena Adkins commented.

There was some defense by the Lady Bears too. Ava Wright made a wonderful running catch in centerfield for the first out of the seventh inning and then went to the fence to pull down the final out of the game. Coach Adkins told Wright after the game she earned the "golden glove" for the night with the two late catches to preserve the shutout.

The only hit for Jasper was a triple but the Lady Bears got the ball quickly back into catcher Jillian Brown who rifled a throw to third base to nip the Lady Bulldog diving back to the bag after rounding it with thoughts of an inside the park homerun. LCM also pulled off a double play in the first inning on an attempted sacrifice bunt by Jasper.

As they did on Tuesday the Lady Bears took the lead in the first inning with two runs. The rally started with two outs as Lexis Moss singled, Wright walked, before Jacelyn Cook and Ansley Moore both delivered clutch hits to drive in the pair of runs for a 2-0 Little Cypress Mauriceville lead.

Two more Lady Bears scored in the fifth inning to make the score 4-0 in favor of LCM. Moss and Wright had the runs batted in that inning.

Coach Adkins was pleased with twice getting two-out rallies and the Lady Bears' defense. "It's always nice when we come out in the first inning and put a couple runs on the board, and then when my defense plays solid as they did tonight so that a couple more runs scoring late just secures the win for us," Adkins concluded.

The Lady Cardinals got shutout pitching last week as Bridge City won its two games. On Tuesday, April 11, Carson Fall was fantastic pitching a one hitter with sixteen strikeouts as Bridge City beat a very good Lady Pirates (6-4) team by the score of 3-0 at Vidor. Brooklyn Droddy swung a big stick going three for three with two runs batted in for the Lady Cardinals.

Friday night the Lady Cardinals clobbered the Lumberton Lady Raiders 10-0 in Bridge City. Freshman Cambree LaComb pitched the five-inning shutout yielding four hits in the game that was shortened because of the 10-run rule.

LaComb was a hitting star as well with two runs batted in. Haley Munoz, Nicole Sasser, and Amaris Larkin each had two hits for the Lady Cardinals.

The Little Cypress Mauriceville Lady Bears and the Bridge City Lady Cardinals were both 9-1 with two games to play this week. The Lady Bears played at West Orange Stark on Tuesday and will close out the regular season on Friday at Silsbee. The Lady Cardinals traveled to Jasper on Tuesday and will celebrate Senior Night at Bridge City on Friday against the West Orange Stark Lady Mustangs.