Breakthrough eludes Bentonville : For third time in four years, Lady Tigers lose in state softball semifinals
Posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/bcdr/Sports/61761/
RUSSELLVILLE — Bentonville had the door shut in its face again.
North Little Rock scored a late run on a set play to beat the Lady Tigers 1-0 in Monday’s Class 7 A State Softball Tournament semifinal.
The Lady Charging Wildcats (29-3 ) will get a rematch with top-ranked and two-time defending state champion Fayetteville in Saturday’s championship game, set for 10 a. m. at Lady’Back Field.
The Lady Bulldogs (29-3 ) beat Bryant 7-3 in Monday’s first semifinal game. Fayetteville beat North Little Rock 3-2 in eight innings last year in the title game. Bentonville (23-4 ) finishes its season in the semifinals for the third time in four years, including the past two under coach Kent Early.
“ We’re right there knocking on the door so we’re going to keep working and try to break through one day, ” Early said.
North Little Rock broke through Monday in the sixth inning to end a scoreless game.
Winning pitcher Jessica Sheldon reached on a bunt single to start the inning and scored on a wild play started by an error on Natalie Mosely’s infield grounder.
Sheldon advanced all the way to third as the Lady Tigers chased down the loose ball near their first-base dugout. Before pitcher Faith Lund got the ball back to the circle, Mosely took off for second and Lund threw to get her out, allowing Sheldon to score the lone run.
“ That’s the play that we use, ” NLR coach Perry Parr said. “ It simply puts pressure on (the opposing team ). They had to make a choice — get the runner out at second — and it actu- ally works. They lost focus on the runner on third. If they don’t make the throw to second, it’s second and third and we’re still in great shape.
“ That was a game of limited opportunities. ”
The Lady Charging Wildcats had just 5 hits off Lund (23-4 ) while Sheldon (27-3 ) held Bentonville to just 2 hits while striking out 14 in the complete-game shutout.
“ That’s a typical Jessica Sheldon outing, ” Parr said. “ She stepped in and battled all day long. We watched Bentonville against Conway and said ‘ Wow, how are we going to stop them ?”
The Lady Tigers had 15 hits in a 15-12 win against Conway. That quarterfinal was completed Monday afternoon after getting suspended Saturday in the bottom of the sixth. Lund needed just 11 pitches to get through the seventh inning of that game.
Lund had 3 strikeouts against North Little Rock and worked out of three jams to keep the game scoreless.
The Charging Lady Wildcats loaded the bases with two outs in the second and fifth but the Bentonville defense got outs to end those threats. North Little Rock also left its leadoff runner stranded at third base in the fourth.
“ Defensively we were good, ” Early said. “ We made some good plays and I’m proud of the kids. They left it on the field. ”
Bentonville didn’t have the scoring opportunities like North Little Rock.
The Lady Tigers had just four baserunners in the loss and could never move one passed first base.
“ Offensively we weren’t clicking but I still felt all we had to do was get one (runner ) on there, ” Early said.
“ We chased a lot of stuff high early on and didn’t give ourselves a good enough chance (at the plate ). We didn’t move the runner. We couldn’t get a break. ”