Lady Eagles reach regional semis for third straight year
Solid pitching, hitting add up to perfect run in Class 5A playoffs
Another matchup between district rivals Barbers Hill and Splendora on the softball field was about what one might have expected.
As expected, it came down to the final inning.
Barbers Hill came away with the 4-2 victory over Splendora on a hot Saturday afternoon at Crosby High School to sweep the teams’ best-of-three Class 5A Region III quarterfinal series.
The Lady Eagles (35-4) advanced to the regional semifinals for the third consecutive year and fourth time since 2014. They’ll face College Station, which completed a sweep of Willis, a state finalist last season, on Friday night.
Barbers Hill, ranked No. 10 in the latest Texas Girls Coaches Association’s Class 5A poll, took four of five meetings from Splendora (23-14) this season.
The teams played twice in District 21-5A action in the regular season, again in a district tiebreaker game when both teams were in a four-way tie with Kingwood Park and Dayton and then two games this weekend.
“Every game we’ve played them it’s been very tight, very close to our expectation,” Barbers Hill coach Aaron Fuller said. “Every time you play them, you kind of know what you’re going to get. There’s little room for errors; you have to make routine plays and you have to come up with big timely hits.”
The respect between the programs was evident.
“They’re a great program,” said Splendora coach Deana Eubanks, whose program will move down to Class 4A next season. “It’s always fun to compete against them because you know it’s going to be a good game. We will definitely miss that next year.”
The Lady Eagles struck first on Mackenzie Collins’ sacrifice fly RBI in the second inning. Barbers Hill added three more runs in the fourth, starting with Maddy Simon’s fielder’s choice RBI and capping the scoring with Hayley Freudenberg’s tworun single up the middle.
Splendora had opportunities to break the game open but struggled at the plate in key situations against Barbers Hill. The Ladycats loaded the bases with no outs in the third, but the Lady Eagles’ Jessica Mullins worked out of the jam before stranding a runner in scoring position in each of the next two innings.
Splendora finally got a timely hit at a crucial moment. Sophomore Gracie Bumpurs, who started in the circle and went four innings, hit a two-run homer over the left-field fence to bring the Ladycats to within two runs in the top of the sixth.
That signaled the end of the day for Mullins. Freshman Sophia Simpson came on in relief and struck out five of the seven batters she faced to seal the win.
Although Mullins and Simpson combined on 11 strikeouts Saturday, it’s really been the defense supporting them that has lifted Barbers Hill to six straight wins through three rounds.
“Our pitchers are good,” Fuller said. “They throw strikes but don’t get a whole lot of strikeouts. Defense is extremely important. … Defense is what wins you championships.” taterconroe@gmail.com