Lady Tigers try to finish off Conway today
Posted on Monday, May 12, 2008
BENTONVILLE - If a back-andforth slugfest that featured two grand slams wasn't exciting enough, then a cliffhanger certainly added to the suspense Saturday.
The Bentonville and Conway softball teams will finish their Class 7 A State Tournament quarterfinal today - 45 hours after it was suspended because of a severe thunderstorm that moved through Russellville on Saturday night.
The game will resume today at 2 p.m. at Russellville's Hickey Park with the fourth-ranked Lady Tigers leading No. 8 Conway 15-12 in the bottom of the sixth inning.
The winner will play 7 ACentral champion North Little Rock at 6 p.m. today in the second semifinal.
Two-time defending state champion Fayetteville plays Central runner-up Bryant at 4 p.m. in the first semifinal.
The Lady Tigers (22-3 ) had just added two runs to their sixth-inning lead when play was stopped for the second time. They'll bat with two outs and a runner at first base. "Surely you would think we have a little advantage but I just don't know," Lady Tigers coach Kent Early said Sunday. "You can never tell and that's the scary thing. "Conway will have its best batters - including catcher J. B. Davis - up in the seventh inning.
Davis blasted a grand slam to center field to cap a big second inning to give the Lady Wampus Cats (20-8 ) a 6-1 lead. But Bentonville wouldn't go away. Alex Sullivan's triple nearly left the park to start the bottom of the second and kickstart the comeback. She scored on Emily Dodd's RBI groundout.
After Conway added a pair of runs, the Lady Tigers pulled to within 8-6 before the first rain delay.
Junior pitcher Faith Lund and Jordan Hames had RBI hits before Sullivan's double got passed the center fielder, allowing Hames and Sullivan to score on the error.
Lund knocked in another run in the fourth and blasted a grand slam to center field to cap a six-run fifth to give Bentonville a 13-8 lead.
The Lady Tigers scored runs on a Dodd RBI double and a Conway error before Jackie Saumweber's infield single loaded the bases for Lund. It was her eighth home run of the year.
"I'm proud of the kids," Early said. "Down 8-2, most teams will shut it down. Those kids fought hard and came back."
Conway pulled back within a run by scoring four times in the top of the sixth - two on passed balls as it began to rain again.
Bentonville answered again, plating a run thanks to a two-out error on Brittney O'Reilly's single to left and McGuirt's RBI single just before the game was suspended.
Lund had 3 hits and 6 RBIs when the game was suspended to lead Bentonville's 15-hit attack. She also struck out 8 and scattered 9 hits.
"It's probably one of the most exciting games (I've seen ) but it's nerve racking," Early said. "Neither team played defense that well but they couldn't because we both just hit the ball.
"Defense was not a factor. Who's going to score the last run or make the last error, that's who's going to win the game."
The Lady Tigers have 4 errors in the loss and have allowed the most runs in Early's three years as coach.
"Defensively we made some boneheaded plays," Early said. "We were trying to do too much and instead of just keeping it simple and getting the outs."
That's all the Lady Tigers have to do when play resumes.
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