Out of the way : Lady Bulldogs knock off rust to advance at state
Posted on Sunday, May 11, 2008
RUSSELLVILLE - Fayetteville's first playoff win Saturday didn't go as smoothly as the Lady Bulldogs had hoped.
After rain postponed the game for 50 minutes, Fayetteville was soggy at the plate, but still took advantage of Cabot errors to post a 3-0 win.
"I'm happy. We won," Fayetteville head coach Jason Shirey said. "I told the players I don't care, it doesn't have to be pretty. We're not getting style points, it's all about winning games now. That was the big thing for us - just getting the first one out of the way."
Early rust showed for the Lady Bulldogs, who hadn't played a game in eight days. But Cabot made sure to give the 7 A-West champions some help.
Fayetteville (28-3 ) capitalized on two errors in the first inning to advance runners. Both errors came on back-to-back hits, including a drop of a routine fly ball in center field. The drop helped score Morgan Keller from first as Amanda Summerford reached after the miscue.
From then on, Fayetteville's infield defense dominated. Summerford, who struck out three bat- ters, and allowed just 2 hits, but was mostly saved by her teammates in the infield. Twelve of Fayetteville's last 18 outs on defense happened in the dirt.
"They were aggressive early in the count," Shirey said of Cabot. "They just went after a lot of first pitches and put the ball in play. [Summerford ] wasn't taxed too much. They just worked in there. Once they got in an 0-2 count, they were going to go after the first good pitch they saw."
Cabot (10-10 ) advanced a runner to third base with one out in the first inning, but a strikeout and infield out ended the threat. Brooke Taylor managed the leadoff hit and advanced to third after a wild pitch. She ended the day as the Lady Panthers'only runner to advance into scoring position.
"It never materialized, but I'm proud of them," Cabot head coach Becky Steward said. "We had a chance in the first inning to do something, but we've battled all year long. I still felt like after the first inning we could get a run across."
Pitcher Cherie Barfield struck out eight Fayetteville batters in the loss, but miscues in the outfield hurt the Lady Panthers.
Fayetteville scored its second run thanks to a third error in the third inning. Katie Petrino reached base with a single, then advanced on an error in left field and Jessika Booher plated the sophomore with single to right center.
"You take away those two innings, the score is 1-0," Steward said. "The kids need to realize that. To hold [Fayetteville ] to 3 runs, it's a good moral victory for us."
The Lady Bulldogs will play Bryant in the Class 7 A State Tournament semifinals Monday at 4 p.m. Bryant defeated Van Buren, 4-3, in 10 innings Saturday.
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