Sonoraville stays unbeaten in 6-AAA
RINGGOLD, Ga. — Already halfway through the region portion of the softball schedule, Sonoraville has established itself as the team to beat in 6-AAA.
If the Lady Phoenix continue to hit as they did Tuesday in a 5-3 win at Ringgold, they will be hard to catch. At least that’s what coach Chad Hayes hopes, even if he would like to have seen a few more runs from his team’s season-high 17 hits.
“We’ve had a great start,” Hayes said. “Pitching and defense have been great and the bats have started to catch up a bit. Today, though, we should have had some more runs. Five runs aren’t enough on 17 hits, but that’s kind of been the story so far.”
Sonoraville (11-1, 8-0) left 13 runners on base, including seven in scoring position. Shayna Dutton, however, was 3-for-4 with three RBIs in such situations, including a two-out RBI single in a three-run sixth inning that proved to be the difference.
Senior pitcher Kristen Davis was solid again, allowing one earned run and six hits — four to Lady Tigers leadoff hitter Amber Grant — while striking out 12.
“Kristin goes out there and does her job, and nothing rattles her,” Hayes praised. “She’s also one of our better hitters, too. Shayna has been swinging it well lately and was on today.”
Dutton knocked in the team’s first two runs with hits in the first and fifth innings, sandwiching an RBI triple from the hot-hitting Grant in the third inning. Sonoraville, which left the bases loaded in the fifth after scoring one, seemingly broke the game open in the sixth with consecutive hits from Haley Williams, Karley Thomas and Sarah-Anne Arthur to score one.
After a strikeout, Davis stepped up and put one deep over the right-center fence, but the home plate umpire called her out for being out of the box when she hit it. Thomas, though, scored anyway moments later on a wild pitch, and Dutton followed with her third RBI single and a 5-1 lead.
Ringgold (4-7, 4-5) rallied in the seventh, thanks in part to two Lady Phoenix errors. Baileigh Pitts made them pay with a two-run single, but Davis later stranded the tying runs in scoring position by getting Taylor Layne to bounce back to the circle.
“We’ve got to finish a little better than we did today,” Hayes said. “I’m real proud of what we’ve done in the circle and behind Kristen, but we just need to pick it up a bit with our bats. Today was a good start there, but we need to get more runs on the board.”
Griffin Holden had three hits along with Dutton, and Davis, Arthur, Payton Townsend and Williams added two hits each for the Lady Phoenix.
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6296; follow on Twitter @youngsports22