Prep Softball Report: Final playoff push is underway

The Region 6-AAAA Tournament is scheduled to start this weekend in Calhoun and at the time of this writing, the LFO Lady Warriors’ participation in that tournament had not yet been determined.

By virtue of three final region losses last week, LFO ended the regular season with a 3-13 mark in 6-AAAA. The Lady Warriors were scheduled to host Murray County this Tuesday night (Sept. 25) in a play-in game with the winner moving on to the region tournament in Calhoun and the loser seeing its season come to an abrupt end.

After four straight wins at the SCORE International Invitational tournament in Chattanooga, LFO dropped three straight decisions to this past week to region leader Sonoraville (2-0), region runnerup Calhoun (13-8) and Adairsville (2-0).

Morgan Ritchey had two of LFO’S four hits against Class 3A top-ranked Sonoraville, while Maddy Adkins had three hits, an RBI and scored twice against second-ranked Calhoun. Taylor Phillips and Shelby Houts had two hits apiece in the loss to Adairsville.

The Lady Warriors got a little momentum back with wins over Dade County (7-1) and Kell (16-0) at the LFO Invitational at Jack Mattox over the weekend.

LFO got three hits and a pitching victory from Haley Stahl and four RBIS from Adkins in Friday’s win over Dade, while Jennifer Coates threw a fourinning perfect game in Saturday’s win. Phillips wielded the big stick against Kell with two doubles and six RBIS. Stahl had two triples and three RBIS, while Houts (three RBIS) and Ritchey (one RBI) had three hits each.

Ringgold is locked into the No. 5 seed for the region tournament with an 8-8 mark in 6-AAAA play. They reached that record after wins against Murray County (14-6) and North Murray (1-0) last week.

Offense was the name of the game against the Lady Indians as Baileigh Pitts was 3-for-3 with a double and three RBIS. Ava Raby also had three hits and finished with two RBIS, while Amber Gainer had a pair of hits, including a solo homer, and scored three times. Then, against the Lady Mountaineers, they got a one-hitter from junior Kaylee Phillips, while Riley Nayadley provided the lone run on an Rbi-double in the bottom of the first inning.

Ringgold went on to go 1-2 at the LFO Invitational, falling to Northwest Whitfield (5-0) and Class 2A power Rockmart (12-5) on Friday before an 8-7 win over Dade County on Saturday.