PADUCAH — In a game that seemed to, literally, take all day to arrive, the Kentucky Region 1 Softball Championship clash between Calloway County and Hickman County closed Monday’s batch of games with much entertainment for the fans who stayed at the new Paducah Tilghman Field.
It also was the kind of matchup that drips of postseason drama. The two teams have met in this tournament before and one team wanted to turn the tables from the previous year’s matchup.
However, once again, it was the 1st District champion Lady Falcons from those rough-and-tough Mississippi River counties that simply made too many plays against 4th District runner-up Calloway. For the second year in a row, Hickman ended the Lady Lakers’ season, this time by a 3-1 after coming from behind to win, 3-2, in last year’s first round at Graves County.
“We hit the ball … just right at them,” said Calloway Head Coach Jeri Kramer, whose team ends its season at 10-12, while the Lady Falcons (21-13) marched into an encounter Tuesday night with state superpower McCracken County, who suddenly seems to have discovered its usual form after looking downright mortal earlier in the season.
Monday, the Lady Lakers only had four hits, but it was not from a lack of trying. Two of those hits came in the top of the first and were on scorching singles from starting pitcher Hailee Jones and second baseman Emerson Herndon.
A bitter pill was that Hickman’s first run came on a knubber in front of third base from Sophie Morris that resulted in an RBI single and a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first. It also came with two outs.
“It is what it is,” Kramer said of the cheap RBI.
However, Kramer said that, while that was frustrating, what followed in the fifth was harder to swallow. A huge error allowed Hickman’s final two runs to score.
Again, those runs came with two outs after Jones had put her team in position to return to its dugout down only the one run. However, Kaylee Britton’s short fly ball to the edge of the infield could not be grabbed and allowed pitcher Blair Byassee to help her own cause with a long double off the right-center-field fence that padded the lead to 3-0.
That meant Byassee was able to throw with less stress, despite surrendering a run in the sixth after Laila Clark’s own infield single off a knubber in front of third base led to her scoring on pitcher Hailee Jones’ sacrifice fly. Clark made that possible by stealing second base.
“We lost, 3-1, and it was those two runs that beat us … two unearned runs. If we’d not had that, we’d have a tie game in the seventh inning,” Kramer said. “Playing clean defense … it’s something we’ve struggled with all year long.
“But I thought we went out there and fought all night and our girls played hard.”
The loss was a tough way for Jones to end her Lady Laker career. Though she allowed seven hits, the Calloway ace right-hander had five strikeouts and only allowed one or two clean hits. The rest were on the infield.
She also did not walk a single Lady Falcons hitter.
“Hailee pitched an amazing game. Her leadership and calm out there … you can’t overstate what that does for a team,” Kramer said of Jones, who also was the unfortunate loser in last year’s regional meeting. Calloway led that game, 2-1, in the sixth inning but Hickman scored two runs to take that win.
In the regular season, Calloway met the Lady Falcons twice and earned a split, falling by a 6-3 score in March at Clinton before winning, 3-2, in Murray.
However, Hickman appeared to be facing a major challenge for its semifinal game on Tuesday night, provided it was played as rain, which delayed Monday’s games, returned during the day on Tuesday.
Whenever play resumes, Hickman will be faced with 2nd District champion McCracken, who clubbed a good Graves team, 13-1, Monday night in a surprising run-rule knockout in five innings. That Graves team split with the Lady Mustangs during the regular season.
Monday ended the Lady Lakers careers of seniors Jones, Clark and Emily French.