Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Prairie Grove Softball Prepares For Booneville
OZARK — The Prairie Grove softball squad couldn’t capitalize on a bye, losing 6-0, to Gravette in the district semifinal at Ozark on April 29.
Prairie Grove came in as the tournament’s No. 2 seed with only a single loss in conference play, on March 28 to U.S. 62 rival, Farmington. After the March 28 loss, the Lady Tiger team strung together five straight conference victories and until district had not lost another game in the 1-4A.
“They got caught looking ahead a little bit,” said Prairie Grove coach Chris Collins. “It was the perfect storm. We’d been off a week and it’s not easy to beat anybody three times in a row, especially a good team.”
“We didn’t execute when we needed to, more plays need to be made,” said Kaleigh Witherspoon.
“We were rusty, we had five errors, we hit three batters and we gave up the first home run we’d given up in a long time,” Collins said.
“We didn’t come out on top. We just kind of rode through it until we realized we actually needed to do something,” said Loren Gragg.
Collins has the benefit of a veteran lineup with seven Lady Tigers on the field, who have started since their freshmen season.
The group was part of a team that went 5-17, then doubled the amount of wins in their sophomore season before suffering an agonizing season-ending defeat in the first round at district as juniors.
“Before last year, we missed going to state by one run two years in a row,” Collins said. “Last year we were right on the cusp, we beat some 7A teams early in the season but we had to win a game at district to get to the Regional tournament and we didn’t do that.”
The Lady Tigers have had to overcome their share of injuries. Last season, Sidney Jaro, the short stop, had surgery during the softball season as did catcher, Madison Cluck, who had her appendix removed just prior to the district tournament.
“We’re the surgery team, we’ve had a lot of medical maladies going on,” Collins said. “Lauren Gragg is coming back from gallbladder surgery two weeks ago. She’s all heart. She’s a leader, she doesn’t say a lot. She leads by example. She’s a great kid.”
“This year we’re in a better spot with our knowledge of the game and maturity-wise. We finished with the number-two seed where we didn’t have to win a game to get into the Regional tournament.
Collins said the biggest improvement this season is with the team’s mental toughness, which he was counting on to give them an edge over number two seeded Booneville on Monday.