Monday was the one night of the season that inspired Great Crossing coach Donald Murphy to hug all the opponents rather than shake hands in the post-game receiving line.<\/p>\n
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GC stayed undefeated with a come-from-behind win over Male, 5-2, on what understandably was a night of mixed emotions for the veteran coach in his first season as the Warhawks\u2019 skipper.<\/p>\n
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Murphy guided Male to 68 wins from 2023 to 2025 before taking the helm of his hometown team.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s about relationships in this game when you\u2019ve coached as long as I have,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cWe all get caught up in wins and losses, but as you get a little bit older and you wonder how much longer you\u2019ve got, it\u2019s about relationships and getting invited to weddings and birthday parties and things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
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His new team stormed to 6-0 with a comeback in the middle innings.<\/p>\n
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Great Crossing pulled even with one out in the bottom of the fourth inning, when Maleigha McKinney blasted a two-strike pitch over the left field fence for the second home run of her freshman season.<\/p>\n
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\u201cMaleigha is just Maleigha. She\u2019s going to be unbelievable by the time she\u2019s done,\u201d Murphy said.<\/p>\n
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Singles by Taylor Gorbett and Mara Livingston, combined with the Bulldogs crucial error, broke the tie in the fifth.<\/p>\n
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Brooke Smith\u2019s base hit prolonged that rally, culminating in an RBI triple by Dakota Mullins.<\/p>\n
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Mullins has more than doubled last year\u2019s batting average of .234 to .526 and is the runaway team leader with 14 RBI in six games.<\/p>\n
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\u201cShe\u2019s on fire. She\u2019s got some confidence now, and you know how that is,\u201d Murphy said of Mullins. \u201cThat\u2019s 90 percent of the battle at this age. She\u2019s put in the work. We\u2019ve come in early, and she\u2019s stayed late.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Aevea Mosley-Franklin gave GC a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first.<\/p>\n
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The freshman speedster led off with a leadoff single, stole second, took third on a throwing error and scored on Mullins\u2019 groundout.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe\u2019ve got so much speed,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cI think it\u2019s important that we use that and put pressure on them. Put some runners in motion when we have the chance to and cause some chaos when we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Ava Collins also had a hit for Great Crossing, which edged Male in that column, seven to six.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt didn\u2019t seem like we out-hit them, but they had a lot of hits for extra bases, which made it a little tighter than it needed to be at times,\u201d Murphy said.<\/p>\n
GC committed all four of its errors in a frightful top of the third, handing the Bulldogs a 2-1 lead.<\/p>\n
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Kaylee Brooks and Camryn Noland each had a hit for Male (3-4) in that frame to prolong the agony.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe made some good defensive plays when we had to,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cWe were struggling early and gave them everything they got, so if you take that away. They had a big error, too, that gave us two runs.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Both runs against McKinney were unearned.<\/p>\n
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\u201cMaleigha pitched another complete game, only had three walks. That\u2019s big for her,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cShe kind of struggled with her screwball today, which was the reason they were barreling so much to the right side.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Great Crossing is ranked No. 12 in the latest statewide coaches\u2019 poll. Murphy is pleased with the Warhawks\u2019 early flight but cautioned that it can\u2019t last forever.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s exciting,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to lose games because of the lack of experience, but man, there\u2019s some really, really good days ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The Hawks could take some of those lumps this weekend at the vaunted, annual Bob Jones tournament in Madison, Alabama.<\/p>\n
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GC will play four Alabama schools \u2014 Huntsville and Ardmore on Thursday, Colbert County and East Lawrence on Friday \u2014 to set their place in Saturday\u2019s single-elimination championship bracket.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe\u2019ll have our hands full,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cThey\u2019re getting ready to go into district play down there, played 20 games, so they\u2019re pretty polished at this point and have their lineups figured out. It will be a good test for us, though.\u201d<\/p>\n
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And yes, through all the tugs at the heartstrings in the latest win, the coach is still glad to be home.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI really love those girls, and that\u2019s obviously a great program, great school with a lot of support,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cA chance to get back home with this young talent this amazing facility and this great administration, it\u2019s something that was a dream come true. I love those kids, but I love these kids, and I\u2019m tickled to death to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Monday was the one night of the season that inspired Great Crossing coach Donald Murphy to hug all…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2288],"tags":[2315,2309,5,2316,2323,2314,2317,2313,2325,19,2310,2328,2304,2318,2308,2319,4,2305,2303,35196,2307,2321,185,2324,2311,2312,1039],"class_list":{"0":"post-661469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-athletic-sports","9":"tag-ball-and-bat-games","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-baseball-competitions","12":"tag-baseball-events","13":"tag-baseball-finals","14":"tag-baseball-games","15":"tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","16":"tag-baseball-teams","17":"tag-major-league-baseball","18":"tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","19":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","20":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","21":"tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","22":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams","23":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams-seasons","24":"tag-mlb","25":"tag-mlb-playoffs","26":"tag-mlb-postseason","27":"tag-october-in-sports","28":"tag-outdoor-sports","29":"tag-seasons-in-baseball","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-sports-events","32":"tag-team-sports","33":"tag-turf-sports","34":"tag-world-series"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}