Coach Vincent impressed by Lady Panthers production from facing tough competitors
Magnet Cove softball head coach Hunter Vincent believes his Lady Panthers are gearing up in the right direction after their series of battles on the diamond from the recent spring break performances.
The Lady Panthers have faced some stiff and championship caliber talent and Vincent was pleased by his teams’ competitive showing during softball competition.
Although Vincent knows the Lady Panthers are a young group, he has observed productive and positive play against several higher classification teams. These tough match-ups will help the Lady Panthers progress as a stout overall unit and Vincent can see their improvement blossoming thus far into the 2021 softball season.
During a few non-conference battles, the Lady Panthers fell to the talented Malvern Lady Leopards 7-4 and the Parkers Chapel Lady Trojans 7-1 on March 20. Then, this past weekend, the Lady Panthers faced more solid competition and fell to the Glen Rose Lady Beavers 13-4, but regrouped to secure victories against Haskell Harmony Grove 9-1 and Jessieville 15-0 during tourney play in Magnet Cove.
Vincent was satisfied how well the Lady Panthers kept their composure to rally up wins from a few tough defeats—which show their maturity as mental tough ballplayers.
“I was very pleased with how we bounced back and took care of business. We lost three in a row to three quality opponents and could have kept our heads down but the girls responded the way you want,” Vincent said.
“Learning from mistakes in those other games but having a short memory at the same time. They were locked in and having fun. When you can handle three losses by responding by winning two games with a combined score of 24 to 1, that shows some mental toughness,” Vincent said.
He added, “I don’t know if we had that mental toughness three weeks ago, we are a young team (one senior), but are growing up fast.”
Vincent noted when the Lady Panthers faced Glen Rose, Malvern and Parkers Chapel, he fully expect all three of those teams to be state tournament teams in their classifications. He said, “Parker’s Chapel has a pitcher committed to Division 1 Drexel and is probably the top team in 2A right now.”
Against Malvern, “We had our chances and were tied headed into the seventh inning. I was happy with how we competed against them, as they had beaten us pretty handily earlier in the year— against Parker’s Chapel we gave up one earned run all day, and can’t make errors against a good, good team,” Vincent said.
He mentioned, “They [Parkers Chapel] are a regional opponent so there is a good chance we will see them again. Glen Rose had the best offense 1-9 that we have seen.”
Vincent noted about the Lady Panthers big victories against Harmony Grove and Jessieville—Haylie Helton earned the win against Harmony Grove, giving up four hits, no earned runs, with eight strikeouts from her damage in the pitcher’s circle. Alexa Gangoso also collected 2 RBIs, Kynsli Brashears had two hits and scored two runs against Harmony Grove.
Bella Harville earned the win from her stout pitching performance in the pitcher’s circle against Jessieville— throwing a no hitter with one walk and stuck out seven batters.
Maddie Lawerence collected two hits, had one RBI, four stolen bases, and scored three runs for Magnet Cove against Jessieville.
Also Marleigh McCutcheon tallied two hits with two RBIs. Hadley Herrington got a base hit and scored the game clinching run for the sportsmanship rule to go in effect, Vincent mentioned.
The Lady Panthers improved to 11-6 overall, (1-0 in conf.) on the season.