North Forney ousts Lady Tigers
MOUNT PLEASANT, Texas— Texas High’s five errors were not a factor.
A wind, gusting 35-40 mph straight out to left was a huge factor.
Still, the biggest reason North Forney eliminated the Lady Tigers, 4-1, from the Region II-5A bi-district playoffs Saturday at Northeast Texas Community College was junior pitcher/slugger Andrea Decarneau.
The Lady Falcons’ pitcher scattered five hits on 76 pitches, striking out four and walking none. Decarneau also contributed a wind-aided home run and single in beating THS for the second time in less than 24 hours.
“Their little pitcher (Decarneau), I don’t know what else to say; she’s pretty dang good,” Texas High coach Robbie Hatfield said. “She kept us off stride the last three days. We never could get on her and put anything together. The only other girl I’ve seen this year that might have been as good was from McKinney. My players were saying the pitch looked good, and then broke a foot.
“Our errors didn’t hurt us because we battled and got out of a lot of jams. You’ve got to credit our girls because they could have had some big innings. Mabry (Smith) bulled her neck and really did a great job. Their batters didn’t swing hard at all on the two home runs they hit. The ball exploded and the wind did the rest.”
Smith, who threw 339 pitches over the three-game series, got off to a good start with four strikeouts in the first two innings.
Unfortunately, she walked Brooke Taylor, and Amanda Jones lofted a
fly to left for a two-run homer, which was all Decarneau would need.
North Forney (19-14), making its eighth consecutive playoff appearance, added two insurance runs in the seventh on Decarneau’s round-tripper to left, a two-out walk to Alyssa Gaidos, and run-scoring double to center by Jones.
“Because of the errors, I believe we weren’t sure of ourselves, and the ball definitely wasn’t bouncing our way,” Hatfield said. “Things were beginning to snowball on us. I told the girls we’ve just got to tip our hat to them. They’re a good-hitting team, and they made some good defensive plays. When we tried to rally they stuffed them by making defensive plays.”
The Tigers’ only run scored in the fourth with two outs on singles by Ashley Wyrick, Braley Turner and Kaitlyn Cross. With runners at third and second, Decarneau got out of trouble getting Raegan Erskine to ground out on a hard-hit ball to shortstop.
The only other time THS got a runner as far as second was the seventh.
Cross singled to center for her second hit, but was forced at second on Erskine’s grounder to shortstop. Another ground ball and strikeout brought Texas High’s season to an end.
“We don’t have any reason to hang our heads,” Hatfield said. “We reeled off 17 straight wins this year. That’s hard to do, I don’t care who you’re playing. Our girls had a really good year.”
Smith, only a sophomore, finished the season 19-5 in the circle with 261 strikeouts. THS was 25-7 and co-champions of District 16-5A with Mount Pleasant.
North Forney advances to play Prosper (21-9) in next week’s area round. Prosper lost the opener of the best-of-three bi-district series against Frisco Centennial, 2-1, then came back to win the next two games, 8-2 and 11-1. North Forney 020 000 2 — 4 9 0 Texas High 000 100 0 — 1 5 5
Andrea Decarneau and Alyssa Gaidos. Mabry Smith and Kylee Spriggs. WP-Decarneau. LP-Smith (19-5). HR-NF, Amanda Jones, 2nd, 1 on; Decarneau, 7th, none on.