Willis earns state berth on Brown’s walkoff HR
Rachel Brown hit a walkoff home run in the ninth inning Saturday night at University of Houston’s Cougar Softball Stadium as Willis beat Barbers Hill 5-3 to advance to the Class 5A state tournament for the first time in school history.
Barbers Hill had evened the best-of-three Region III series with a 2-0 win on a no-hitter by Meagan King in Game 2 earlier in the day.
“As soon as I hit it, I could tell it was going over,” Brown said. “Immediate tears to be able to do that.”
Willis coach Stephanie Shelly was thrilled.
“It was in such dramatic fashion,” Shelly said. “We can’t do anything easy. We come out and we go up a game on them (a 6-0 win on Thursday). And hats off to (the Lady Eagles’) pitching. They kept us off-balance in Game 2.”
Casey Dixon opened the bottom of the ninth with a single and courtesy runner TeTe Hollis made it to second base on a wild pitch.
With two outs, Brown stepped up to the plate and ended it.
“I was just trying to get a base hit,” Brown said. “We knew that this was our inning. We had energy and I was just trying to make sure I got a base hit to keep it alive.”
Willis (40-7) held an early lead before Barbers Hill (337) tied the game in the top of the fifth. Rebecca Miller’s drive to the left-field gap scored Jessica Mullins and Sydney Hoyt to make it 3-3.
The Ladykats came to life in the first after a tough start to the evening in Game 2. Hannah Earls used her speed for an infield single to give Willis its first hit of the day.
Then came a two-out rally.
Dixon ripped a two-run homer over the left-field wall on the first pitch she saw from King to give Willis its first lead of the night at 2-1.
Kalynn Johnson then mashed a double to the leftfield gap and scored on an RBI single by Suzy Lopez.
Barbers Hill went to Mullins who got out of the jam and kept Willis off the board for the next five innings.
King squeezed home a run in the first inning of Game 3 to give the Lady Eagles the early 1-0 advantage. Dixon escaped a basesloaded jam with a grounder to first that Lopez stepped on the bag for the out.
Two days after a rough outing in Game 1 in which King allowed two homers and six earned runs, she was Miss Do-It-All in Game 2 for the Lady Eagles.
King struck out 12 in the no-hitter, walked two and hit one batter.
“She actually came down with some sort of cold yesterday,” Barbers Hill coach Aaron Fuller said. “She battled congestion and a headache and a sore throat since yesterday. For her to come out period and throw at all, she didn’t know if she would be able to pitch at all.”
At the plate, King accounted for both runs on a two-run homer in the bottom of the first inning.
It was all the offense Barbers Hill was able to come up with the rest of the game.
Dixon was sharp just as she was in Game 1. She allowed one hit and walked two over the final six innings and had nine strikeouts. Willis brought the game-tying run to the plate in the seventh, but Lopez grounded out to force a series-deciding Game 3.
Willis will play at either 9 a.m. or noon in the semifinals on Friday at McCombs Field at the University of Texas.
“It’s overwhelming,” Brown said of reaching the state tournament. “We knew we had a good group of girls and we knew how hard it was (to make it). We knew we had a hard district this year and coming over that hill would be hard. It’s just an overwhelming feeling and experience. Something you’ll never forget.”