Dragons soar over sluggish Mustangs
Collierville hits four home runs in softball win
The Collier ville High School varsity softball team played hardball against archrival Houston High on Tuesday. As in, the Dragons hit the ball really, really hard.
Collierville, ranked first in The Commercial Appeal’s Super Si x, hit four home runs and defeated the Mustangs, 9-3. The Dragons are 10 - 4.
“We didn’t hit very well over the weekend (at a tournament in Cookeville),” said Dragons ace Bayleigh Wisher, the reigning Pepsi Best of the Preps player of the year.
“We were just seeing the ball really well. Just looking for good pitches and trying to be aggressive at t he plate.
Kelsey Gross — a Pepsi Best of the Preps softball finalist in 2014—got Collierville going with a two-run shot in the first inning before Wisher parked a three-run shot over t he fence in left in the top of the third to make it 5 - 0.
Leadoff hitter Hannah Oliver made it 7- 0 in the top of the fourth with her third homer of the year. Gross singled in a run in t he sixth before Shelby Crocker capped the Dragons’ 1 3-hit afternoon with a solo homer in the top of the seventh.
“Take nothing away from Houston ,” said Dr a gon scoach Mike Bradley. “They’re a good team and (Houston starter) Jenna (Cotter) is a really good pitcher.
“But we’re a seniorladen team and t his team has one goal (a state title). They’ve been working so hard. I tell t hem hard work is like a bank; you can draw on it when you need to, but you have to put it in first.”
Houston’s runs came on Mary Collins’ single in the fifth and Kathryn Peterson’s two-run double in the sixth. The fifth- ranked Mustangs fell to 7-3.
50 AND COUNTING FOR HUTCHISON LACROSSE
The Hutch is on lacrosse team kept its impressive winning streak going Monday. And if the team is still perfect after t his weekend, it will really be worth celebrating.
The Sting, winners of the last four Tennessee Girls Lacrosse Association state championships, ran their winning strea k to 50 with a 1 3 -2 win over Maine South (Illinois). The streak is the thirdlongest in the nation.
Some pretty stiff competition looms, t hough. Hutchison left Wednesday for games against mid-Atlantic powerhouses St. Paul’s (Maryland) on Thursday and St. Stephens-St. Agnes (Washi ngton, D.C.) on Friday.
Despite losing three Division 1 si g nees a nd seven talented seniors in all from last year, coach Samantha Ziegler has plugged in familiar faces in new positions and kept Hutchison rolling.
“We moved (freshman) Elizabeth Farnsworth from attack to midfield and she’s been phenomenal,” Ziegler said. “She’s winning about 70 percent of the draws and she’s our leading point producer.
“Griffin Gearhardt, who was an All-American last year as a freshman, has been our go-to player in terms of creating (chances) and we moved Charlotte Herzog from defense to midfield and she’s been great ... those three have really stepped up.”
LOCAL TRACK STARS SHINE IN NEW ORLEANS
A day after helping Memphis University School record the fastest 3, 200 -meter relay time in the nation, Carlton Orange and Terrell Jackson were in the spotlight again last Saturday at the Sugar Bowl Invitational in New Orleans.
Orange, the meet’s outstanding male performer, won the 800 in 1:50.94, just a head of Jack son’s 1:51.17. Those times are the fastest and secondfastest high school performances in the nation this year.
Last Friday, the MUS 3, 200-meter relay team of Pierce Rose, C.J. Turner, Orange and Jackson ran a 7:45. 5 1 . The time was one second off t he state record.