Cardinals stay undefeated in district softball

The second half of district softball games for District 19-4A began on Thursday, March 28. The Bridge City Cardinals remain undefeated in district going into their games this week.

The Cardinals got two more shutouts from pitcher Carson Fall to improve to 7-0 in their district games. Bridge City has a one game lead over the second place Lumberton Lady Raiders and over two games ahead of the third place Little Cypress Mauriceville Lady Bears who have only played six games.

Fall has thrown three no hitters in district alone this season including a perfect game against the West Orange-Stark Lady Mustangs on Tuesday, March 26. Bridge City won the game 15-0 in four innings.

The win on Thursday for Bridge City was 9-0 against Silsbee. The Cardinals have outscored the opponents 54-1 in their seven district victories.

Little Cypress Mauriceville won its only game last week. The Lady Bears rallied to beat the Silsbee Lady Tigers 16-6 at The Pete on Tuesday, March 26.

Silsbee took the early lead with a two out double in the top of the first inning that scored three Lady Tigers. More damage was avoided as Lady Bear centerfielder Ava Wright threw out the batter at third trying to stretch the hit into a triple.

In the bottom of the first LCM tied the score 3-3 on a three run homerun by Keylie Washburn driving in Jacelyn Cook and Tessa Erickson in front of her. The Lady Bears went up 4-3 in the second inning when Eden Frenzel reached base on a walk and scored from second on a Silsbee error.

The Lady Tigers retook the lead 6-4 in the top of the fourth scoring three runs. An error by the Lady Bears on an infield grounder extended the rally causing two of the Silsbee runs to be unearned.

Frenzel led off the fourth for LCM with a single to rightfield. Cook hit a ball that glanced off the pitcher for a single before Lexis Moss singled to load the bases with Lady Bears.

Erickson hit a blooper that fell into right center but the Lady Tigers did get a force out at second base on a courtesy runner as Frenzel scored from third for the Lady Bears to close the gap to 6-5. After Washburn walked Ava White hit a sacrifice fly to center scoring Cook with the tying run.

Wright walked to load the bases again and Ella Stephenson cleaned the sacks with a double to the leftfield fence to put Little Cypress Mauriceville up 9-6. Abby Sepulvado singled to center to drive home Stephenson with the sixth Lady Bear run of the inning.

Frenzel batted for the second time in the fourth and singled again. Sepulvado went to third on Frenzel's hit and got into a run down when she rounded the base a little too far, but Sepulvado scored the seventh LCM run of the inning when the Silsbee catcher made an errant throw during the run down.

Erickson moved from first base to the circle to pitch the top of the fifth for Little Cypress Mauriceville changing positions with Stephenson. Tessa walked one Lady Tiger and struck out two to keep the score at 11-6 going to the bottom half of the inning.

Moss opened the LCM half of the fifth with a single and Alex Pinder courtesy ran for her. Erickson reached on an error and Washburn walked again to load the bases. Pinder scored when White was hit by a pitch.

Wright hit a sacrifice fly that scored Erickson, and Washburn also came home when Silsbee did not field the throw in cleanly. Stephenson singled to drive in White before Frenzel ended the game with a double to left which brought home Stephenson to give the Lady Bears a ten run lead.

Coach Dena Adkins was proud of the way her Lady Bears battled against Silsbee. "I told the girls before the game we have to do what we have to do. We can't sit back and think that an opponent is going to lay down for us. I told them the Silsbee Lady Tigers were going to fight and came here to win. They were fired up. Like we've been doing all season we were not going to panic. We're going to do what we need to do when we need to do it, and the Lady Bears never let up and the bats stayed hot and we came out on top," Adkins reminded.

The victory gave Little Cypress Mauriceville a 4-2 record in district. The Lady Bears have scored 71 runs in six district games.

Tuesday of this week was another big showdown between Bridge City and LCM at The Pete. The Cardinals won the first meeting between the two teams 4-0 in early March at Bridge City. The Lady Bears travel to Vidor on Friday, and the Cardinals have their second bye on Friday before playing at Vidor on Tuesday, April 9.

There was good news and bad news for the Orangefield Lady Bobcats in softball last week. First the bad news was Orangefield lost Tuesday to first place Kountze 12-1 to drop two games behind the Lady Lions in the District 21-3A standings.

The good news was the Lady Bobcats won a thrilling game 5-4 with Anahuac on Thursday, March 28. The win kept Orangefield alone in second place.

Orangefield threatened in the bottom of the first inning but left the bases loaded. Abby Broussard led off the second with a liner to left for a single. Aubree Beck singled through the circle with two outs to bring home Broussard from second base with the first run of the game for the Lady Bobcats.

Orangefield took a 3-0 lead after four innings thanks to two long balls. Charlee Sanches homered to left in the third, and Paisley Reeves hit her first varsity homerun to dead centerfield in the bottom of the fourth.

Lady Bobcat pitcher Abigail Curphey kept the Lady Panthers scoreless until the fifth when a two out single drove in their first run. Orangefield left fielder Paris Becker made a wonderful running catch against the fence in foul territory to end the inning for Anahuac.

Sanches replaced Curphey in the circle at the start of the sixth inning. Anahuac used two hits, a hit batter, and some crazy bounces to score three runs and take a 4-3 lead.

Curphey was first up for the Lady Bobcats in the bottom of the sixth and singled. Audrey Sonnier courtesy ran for her.

A passed ball moved Sonnier to second base and a single by Alysen Vincent got the tying run to third. Broussard who hit the ball hard every time up did so again with a sacrifice fly to center to score Sonnier tying the game 4-4 and moving Vincent to third with one out.

With the Anahuac infield playing in Reeves hit a slow roller to the shortstop. The Lady Panther threw home not in time to get Vincent who made a beautiful head first slide to score the go ahead run.

In the seventh Curphey returned to the circle and Sanches went to third base. The first Anahuac batter lined a hit to center that got past Hallee Becker who retrieved the ball and made a marvelous throw to Sanches at third for the first out of the inning on the batter trying for a triple.

After Vincent made a nice play on a grounder to second base for the second out the next Lady Panther pounded a pitch that hit the centerfield fence about a foot or two from being a homerun, but was only a single because it was hit so hard the girl did not have much time to run the bases. A fly ball was caught by Haylee Spears in right for the final out.

"Nothing is ever easy, that's for sure. An opposing coach told me a couple weeks ago the Lady Bobcats always figure out a way to win, so I'm proud of that because I think we do scratch for some runs, and we'll push ahead in the late innings which is something we've been pretty good at the last couple years. I just don't want to have to do that," Orangefield Coach Rebekah Ragsdale responded.

The Lady Bobcats played at home against Kirbyville on Tuesday this week. Orangefield's next game will be Friday night at East Chambers.