Lady Owls turn it around
Ooltewah flipped the script Monday at Central.
The Lady Owls and Lady Purple Pounders played for the second time this high school softball season, with the same pitching matchup, but a different team went home happy this time. A five-run second inning helped back the pitching of junior righthander Kayla Boseman, and Ooltewah defeated Central 6-1.
The Lady Pounders won 2-0 on March 27 at Ooltewah. Senior right-hander Brooke Parrott threw a one-hitter at the Lady Owls that day in a game that was halted in the sixth inning because of lightning.
Ooltewah coach Jon Massey said payback wasn’t necessarily on his players’ minds. They simply played with more focus the second time around.
“Our motivation is taking every day and trying to win every game that day,” Massey said. “We have not played well overall. We might look good a couple innings here, a couple innings there, but then we’ll have a lull for three innings.”
Parrott was staked to a first-inning lead Monday when Jada Taylor reached on a oneout bunt single and scored when Kerri Sylvester doubled down the left-field line. But this time the Lady Owls used “small ball” to respond in a big way.
The key inning for Ooltewah (10-3) was sparked by three consecutive bunts after Cheyenne Sales started the rally by lining a single to left. Central made errors on back-to-back sacrifices, and then Makayla Strickland reached on a bunt single.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve gotten two bunts down in a row, heaven forbid,” Massey said. “Sometimes we look like we don’t do it, but I promise you we work on it every day. We’re finally doing a few things like we need to do them.”
Tiera Lemon’s run-scoring single gave the Lady Owls the lead. One out later Boseman picked up an RBI with a walk, ahead of a two-run single by Aubbie Collake.
Central coach LeeAnne Shurette said she didn’t like what she saw defensively from her team in pregame warmups.
“I was hoping they were getting it all out of their systems,” she said. “Normally we’re pretty solid defensively. If we make a few plays before those singles, that second inning doesn’t blow up like that. That’s the most runs we’ve given up in a game all season.”
Central (10-5) made four errors. One came on Lemon’s steal of second in the fourth, allowing her to go to third, from where she was able to score on Boseman’s groundout.
Boseman allowed six hits and no walks and the Lady Owls made no errors. She totaled 12 strikeouts.
Even so, Shurette said her team looked better offensively against Boseman than the last time, when despite winning the Lady Pounders hit only two balls past the infield.
“That’s why we play teams like this,” Shurette said. “I try to make our schedule as tough as possible to get us ready for postseason. I felt like we had some better at-bats against her today. I was just hoping we could score a few runs to help our mindset.”
Collake went 2-for-3 with a double for Ooltewah. Sales was 2-for-4 with a double, and Lemon was also 2-for-4.
Cassidy Simms went 2-for-2 for the Lady Pounders.
Contact Kelley Smiddie at ksmiddie@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6653. Follow him on Twitter @KelleySmiddie.