Lincoln softball enters twilight zone

LINCOLN — Would it have helped if a ghostly apparition masquerading as Rod Serling, narrator of “The Twilight Zone,” had uttered a warning before Lincoln took the field against Glen Rose?

” Fast balls, sliders and ballots enter a dimension, a dimension judged not line of sight but sleight of hand. A foray into an ambiguous strike zone whose boundaries favor that of the opposition. There’s no chain of custody — ballot drops, the Twilight Zone.”

Glen Rose, a No. 4 seed out of the 3A Region 2, hammered Lincoln ace Brinkley Moreton, ranked 10th nationally by Extra Innings Softball and sixth nationally by USA All American as a pitcher, for nine runs (six earned) on 10 hits with two walks, while striking out 10 times against Moreton.

The Lady Beavers knocked off Lincoln, the No. 1 seed out of the 3A Region 1, by a 9-5 score on the Lady Wolves’ home field on Thursday in the opening-round of the Class 3A State softball tournament.

Lincoln’s game plan going into the game didn’t end up being executed because Moreton and the Lady Wolves weren’t getting any calls on the inside part of the plate, and she kept having to throw to the Lady Beavers’ strengths, not to their weaknesses because Lincoln wasn’t getting calls on the inside.

As a result of this odd strike zone, Glen Rose batters were able to hit the ball and put it in play a lot more than Lincoln fans expected.

“It was because we really couldn’t get any strike calls on the inside,” said Lincoln coach Brittany Engel, who was repeatedly frustrated with how the game was called. “We had a game plan of how we went in and how we were going to do it all, and then we got zero calls on the inside part of the plate and so we had no choice but to throw outside pitches and they just put them in bloop, little holes and then we made a few mistakes as well.”

Lincoln led 2-0 after two innings. Glen Rose tied the game with two runs in the top of the third, then continued to surge in the middle innings as they saw pitches they wanted. The Lady Beavers took a 7-2 lead after four innings, and increased the disparity to 9-3 after six innings.

Glen Rose also leveraged a psychological ploy by refusing to pitch to Moreton. The Lady Beavers intentionally walked her every at-bat, all four times she came up to the plate. Engel was a little surprised that they walked Moreton the first time because nobody was on base.

Lincoln leadoff hitter Ryleigh Landrum lined out in her first at-bat and so nobody was on with one out when Moreton came up in the bottom of the first inning.

“Worst case scenario for the other team, she hits a bomb and that’s one run, and then after that I would understand them not pitching to her, but they didn’t even let her swing it at all,” Engel said. “It was devastating. I mean, we definitely weren’t expecting to go out like that, and especially now seeing the final four teams. We beat three of the four of them and it’s very obvious that it could have been us, and now we’re having to work it [the tournament] afterwards.”

Lincoln defeated Atkins, 4-2, on March 11, beat Booneville twice, 4-2, on April 7 at Booneville and 8-0 on May 5 in the 3A Region 1 semifinal at Harrison, and upended Hackett, 9-7, one week before the state tournament on May 6 to win its first-ever regional championship in softball.

None of the No. 1 seeds, which besides Lincoln included Dumas (3A Region 4), Tuckerman (3A Region 2), and Mayflower (3A Region 3) survived the tournament, which raises a question about the possibility of external influences shaping the outcome.

In Lincoln’s case, since Glen Rose didn’t go anywhere, getting shut out, 6-0, on Friday by Atkins, a No. 2 seed out of the 3A Region 2, why would any possible external influences favor Glen Rose? Unless that wasn’t the point.

Last week a lady from Texas, she told me that during the recent primaries, one party took advantage of Texas’ open primary laws by voting on the other party’s nominating ballot in an effort to put candidates least opposed to their party platform on the November general election ballot.

Americans would like to believe that when they send their kids out to play ball or participate in an election, there’s a level playing field. As a Native American I grew up knowing on an Indian Reservation that wasn’t the case. Native American athletes and teams encountered too many double standards in how the rules were enforced.

Then during a 2006 general election in my home county, a man I perceived as a bigot raised questions and filed a lawsuit regarding the integrity of an election, in which a Native American candidate won the sheriff’s race, despite widespread allegations of spouse abuse.

It was way too easy to just blow those allegations of election fraud off because of how I perceived the guy filing the lawsuit, but a lot of things have since emerged that now makes me think, maybe he knew something I didn’t.

This column began with a nod to science fiction and it will end the same way, going back to “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace,” released in theaters on May 19, 1999, borrowing a line from Padmé Amidala when she was Queen of Naboo, “It is clear to me now that the Republic no longer functions. I pray you [the voting public] will bring sanity and compassion back to the Senate.”