Lady Eagles take wild game one of 2A series

EUPORA – A wild first inning took both Eupora and Walnut on a ride in Thursday night's second round Class 2A softball matchup.

The Lady Wildcats dropped four runs on the board in the top of the inning and Eupora followed with an incredible 11run inning in the bottom of the frame. Though things calmed down the rest of the way, Eupora had to hold on late in the game in order to get the 12-9 victory.

With the way that Walnut came out firing, it would have been easy for the Lady Eagles to get discouraged. Coach Clay Grissom watched his Eupora team fight instead.

“I think it gives us a lot of confidence finding yourself in a hole early and then scratching, clawing and finding a way to climb back out of it,” Grissom said. “They hit a lot of balls in spots where no one was, but we didn't let it affect us and made the next play. When we didn't make a play, we didn't blink.”

It was a first inning that was quite unforgettable for the two teams with a total of 15 runs scored between it. Walnut started it with the first four batters reaching with hits, including two doubles. The Wildcats had five total hits in the opening inning as they built a 4-0 lead and it felt healthy at the time until the Lady Eagles went to work.

After a leadoff walk from Cydney Murphy led off the bottom of the inning, Eupora strung together five-straight hits of its own and an incredible eight-straight batters reached. Add in two more errors towards the end of the inning and 14 at-bats delivered an 11-4 lead.

“I saw a lot of quality at bats,”grissom said.“we've preached quality at-bats all year, just doing your job and not trying to do too much. I was more proud of us not dropping our heads.”