LEWISTOWN, Mo. — A trip to the Class 2 state tournament was on the line as Highland was aiming to defend their state championship as it took on South Harrison in the state quarterfinal on Saturday afternoon.

The Lady Cougars dominated the first half of the game, but were unable to hold the lead late as South Harrison rallied in the late innings to defeat Highland 9-5.

Highland got off to a great start offensively in the top of the first inning. Keera Rothweiler got it started for the Lady Cougars with a single. She went 3-for-4 in the game with three singles, two runs scored, and four stolen bases.

With the bases loaded and one out in the first, Hannah Ritterbusch picked up an infield hit to get the Lady Cougars on the board early. Manda Jennings drew a bases loaded walk to force in a second run. Highland quickly found themselves up 2-0 after the first.

Early on that would be enough run support for Highland starting pitcher Abby Lay. She got into some trouble in the first inning, but was able to get out of it without any damage.

“I thought she was exceptional,” said Highland head coach Paul Scifres of Lay. “She’s been going through some command issues for a little bit but she’s responded well. I’m very proud of her and the team.”

The Lady Cougars would pick up another run in the second inning as they had some early success against Lady Bulldogs starter Rory Fitzgerald.

Catcher Bailie Crist reached base for the second time when she picked up an RBI single to score Rothweiler and extend the lead to 3-0.

As the game went on, it looked like Lay was getting better. She had five strikeouts in the first three innings. At times in this game, she wasn’t able to find the strike zone. That not only drove her pitch count up, but it gave South Harrison a chance to hang around in the game.

The Lady Bulldogs would get on the board in the bottom of the third inning to cut the deficit to 3-1.

The Cougars had an answer in the top of the fourth when Crist hit a two-run double splitting the center fielder and right fielder scoring Rothweiler and Addy Abell to extend the lead to 5-1. Crist was 2-2 in the contest.

At this point, it looked like the Cougars were going to cruise to victory.

It started to fall apart for Highland in the bottom of the fifth. A pair of singles set the Lady Bulldogs up with one out for the heart of the lineup. Taneya Doll picked up an RBI double to cut the deficit back to three runs.

The Lady Bulldogs weren’t done. Rory Fitzgerald came up to the plate with two outs in the inning. Fitzgerald hit a line drive that went off the glove of Ritterbusch in center field to score two runs to make it a 5-4 game.

Unfortunately, for the Lady Cougars it would go from bad to worse. After not scoring in the sixth inning, all they could hope for was that their star pitcher could keep the Bulldogs at bay. The Cougars were close to getting out of the inning but Lay ran out of gas and wasn’t able to prevent the tying run from scoring.

In the same inning with the bases loaded and two outs, Coach Scifres decided to take Lay out of the game and pitch freshman Corinne Brinkley in the biggest spot of the year.

South Harrison took advantage of that when Fitzgerald hit a grand slam over the right field wall to give the Bulldogs a 9-5 lead.

“We were teetering on it going into the last inning,” said Scifres. “She was over 100 pitches and we had Corinne ready. We had a matchup that we liked. Unfortunately, it just didn’t work out for us.”

Lay still had a solid game, pitching 5.2 innings and allowing seven hits, eight walks, eight runs and striking out six batters.

Highland finishes the 2025 season 23-8 and will graduate Lay, Abell, Crist, Jennings and Catherine Darnell.