Walker Valley Shades Soddy-Daisy, 8-6, On Bean's Two-Run Homer

Lady Mustangs Reach 5-AAA Softball Title Game; Lady Owls Still Alive

  • Monday, May 4, 2015
  • Larry Fleming
Swinging for the fences. Soddy-Daisy left fielder Meagan Beasley blasts a three-run homer in a four-run first inning that gave the Lady Trojans a 4-3 lead in the District 5-AAA softball tournament Monday night. Walker Valley rallied to pull out an 8-6 win and reach Tuesday's championship game at 7 p.m.
Swinging for the fences. Soddy-Daisy left fielder Meagan Beasley blasts a three-run homer in a four-run first inning that gave the Lady Trojans a 4-3 lead in the District 5-AAA softball tournament Monday night. Walker Valley rallied to pull out an 8-6 win and reach Tuesday's championship game at 7 p.m.
photo by Dennis Norwood

CLEVELAND, Tenn. – In a slugfest that delivered more punches to the gut than the recent Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, Walker Valley third baseman Lara Bean landed a haymaker in the fourth inning Monday night at Bob McKenzie Field.

Bean belted a two-run homer in the fourth inning that gave Walker Valley a four-run lead and the Lady Mustangs made it hold up to win an 8-6 District 5-AAA softball tournament grudge match between two hard-hitting rivals that refused to back down.

“It was my fourth home run this season,” Bean said, “but by far the most important one.

When I hit it I thought it might be good for a base hit, but I watched it go out. This game was an emotional roller coaster, but now we can take a breath and relax a little bit. We have to lose twice not to win the tournament.”

It was a slow-moving 2-hour, 37-minute marathon that ended at 10:37 p.m. Play was stopped for 12 minutes in the bottom of the fourth inning after Walker Valley shortstop Hallie Davis was hit in the face with a bad-hop ground ball.

With the win, Walker Valley (24-7) advanced to Tuesday’s championship game at 7 p.m. and earned a berth in next week’s Region 3-AAA tourney as well.

“That’s huge,” Lady Mustangs coach Lauren Limburg said. “We have not gone into the finals being the winner’s bracket winner since Soddy-Daisy and Ooltewah joined our district. But we’ll have to come out fighting because no matter who we’ll play it’s going to be a great team.”

The Lady Mustangs will await the winner of a 5 p.m. game pitting Soddy-Daisy and Ooltewah. The survivor of that showdown would have to beat Walker Valley twice to capture the tournament championship.

Earlier Monday, Ooltewah slammed East Hamilton, 11-0, in a five-inning elimination game at Bradley Central High School that saw the Lady Owls batter the Hurricanes with 15 hits, including Mabry Carpenter’s three-run homer in a nine-run first inning.

Soddy-Daisy was coming off a 15-0 shellacking of East Hamilton in a game that saw the Trojans scored six runs in the first inning and nine more in the second.

“We knew we’d have a score a lot of runs,” Limburg said, “because Soddy-Daisy has been hitting the ball so well lately. They beat us 7-1 last week.”

Walker Valley (23-8) is not normally a quick-starting offense, but the Lady Mustangs jumped on starter Shonna Penney and reliever Emily Edwards for three runs in the first inning. Emily Spann had a two-run single and Bean’s infield hit pushed the third run across.

Soddy-Daisy (26-8) struck lightning quick in its half of the inning as well.

Cameron Swafford drew a bases-loaded walk and Meagan Beasley ripped a three-run double to center to give the Lady Trojans a 4-3 advantage.

Bean walked to start the third and later scored on a Carly Frost fielder’s choice to tie the game at 4-all. Ninth-place batter Ali King, who singled, and Frost scored on Sydney Ventura’s line-drive double to left field and the Lady Mustangs were up, 6-4.

With one out in the fourth, Edwards hit Raymond with a pitch. Bean followed with her clutch home run. Penney returned to the circle and struck out Mackenzie Elrod and retired king on a pop to third to end the inning.

“Lara is a competitor,” Limburg said. “She’s been struggling at the plate, plus she got hit, but she stepped up big for us. She has a desire to win and it showed tonight.”

In Soddy-Daisy’s half of the fourth, Shana Ward singled only to be forced out at second on Lauren Thomas’ bounced back to Raymond. Abby Walker walked. Grayson Brown laced a two-run single up the middle.

The Lady Trojans went down in order in the fifth, but loaded the bases in the sixth inning only to come up empty.

With one out Brooke Hale singled and Walker walked in the sixth. Hale was forced out at third when Alexis Trimiar hit into a fielder’s choice. Brown walked to load the bases, but Macy Bryant flied out to deep center ending the threat.

An inning later, Swafford reached on Frost’s error in center, but Beasley’s grounder was turned into a force play at third that sent Hale to the dugout with the first out. Ward singled to put runners on the corners.

Raymond fielded Thomas’ roller and threw to first ending the game.

“You have to credit Walker Valley’s other hitters because we again kept Davis from hurting us at the plate. But we left way too many runners (nine to be exact) on base. Eight of them were in scoring position.”

Ooltewah 11, East Hamilton 0: The Lady Owls (32-8) came out on fire and the outcome was basically determined in the first inning when they scored nine runs on nine hits and three errors.

Eight straight Lady Owls reached base before the Lady Hurricanes recorded an out.

With two runs already in, Allie Jones doubled, Kayla Boseman added the first of her four hits (all singles), and Carpenter lined a three-run blast over the fence in left field. Jones, batting for the second time, stroked a two-run single into shallow center added her second hit in the inning for another run.

“We played harder today and with heart,” Carpenter said. “We did what it takes to win ballgames. We’ll come back (Tuesday) and be ready to play. We need to come out strong again.”

Jones, Boseman, Carpenter and Aubie Collake combined to go 6-for-14, with eight RBIs and seven runs scored. Boseman threw a one-hitter and struck out five. The only hit off her was Brie Levy's single leading off the second inning. Brie Levy, who walked with two out in the fourth, was East Hamilton's only other base runner. 

Boseman went 4-for-4 and two RBIs. Carpenter had the three-run dinger and a single and Jones and Collake each had two hits.

“Mabry started hitting from the get-go this season,” Lady Owls coach Jon Massey said. “I didn’t know she was going to hit for power like she’s done. She’s young, but does everything we ask of her.”

After such a cage-rattling start, the Lady Owls (32-8) went into an offensive lull over the next three innings.

Jones doubled to start the fifth and went to second on Boseman’s fourth hit, Carpenter singled to load the bases and Collake delivered a two-run double down the left-field line.

“Going up 9-0 sure makes it a lot easier to coach,” Massey said. “That was big, but after the big start we didn’t add to the lead until four innings later and that was frustrating. I told the girls after the game, we can at least breathe after winning another elimination game.

“We’ve got to come back ready (Tuesday) and come out strong. No matter who we play, it’s going to be a very good team.”

East Hamilton split four games in the tournament, but their two losses were by a combined score of 26-0.

LINESCORES

Walker Valley                   303 200 0 – 8 7 4

Soddy-Daisy                       400 200 0 – 6 9 0

Raymond and Chancey; Penney, Edwards (1), Penney (4) and Swafford.

East Hamilton                   000 00 – 0 1 5

Ooltewah                           900 02 – 11 15 0

Barnes and Brooks; Boseman and Forrester.

Tournament Schedule

Tuesday

Loser’s Bracket Final

Ooltewah vs. Soddy-Daisy, 5 p.m.

Championship

Ooltewah-Soddy-Daisy winner vs. Walker Valley, 7 p.m.

All-District 5-AAA Team

Regular Season

Soddy-Daisy – Emily Edwards, Brooke Hale, Alexis Trimiar, Abby Walker

Ooltewah – Allie Jones, Kayla Boseman, Tiera Lemon

Walker Valley – Hallie Davis, Alicia Raymond

Bradley Central – Chanler Grady

Cleveland – Lauren Lee

East Hamilton – Brie Levy

McMinn County – Abbie Swilley

(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)

 

Lara Bean of Walker Valley smiles rounding second base after smacking what turned out to be a game-winning two-run homer in the fourth inning against Soddy-Daisy at Bob McKenzie Field on the Bradley Central High School campus. The Lady Mustangs won, 8-6.
Lara Bean of Walker Valley smiles rounding second base after smacking what turned out to be a game-winning two-run homer in the fourth inning against Soddy-Daisy at Bob McKenzie Field on the Bradley Central High School campus. The Lady Mustangs won, 8-6.
photo by Dennis Norwood
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