Bartow's Oxley does something new in playoff softball win; Jenkins, Auburndale advance
BARTOW — The Bartow softball team appears to be on a collision course with Melbourne in the regional final, which will determine whether or not the Yellow Jackets will have a chance to defend their state title, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other small things they can achieve along the way.
For Red Oxley, who has accomplished quite a lot in the pitching circle, she did something Thursday against East River she'd never done at any level.
The future Florida Gator supported her four innings of no-hit pitching — that wasn’t the accomplishment — by ripping two home runs in a 10-0 victory on Thursday night in the regional quarterfinals.
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The win sends the Yellow Jackets (27-1) into the Class 6A-Region 3 semifinals against Viera at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday.
Oxley’s four innings of dominance as a pitcher with 10 strikeouts and just one walk over four innings is hardly worth mentioning. It’s more like, been there, done that. She went into the game with a 0.15 ERA as she’s allowed just two earned runs all season in 90 2/3 innings. Ryleigh Knowlton struck out two of three batters she faced in the final inning.
The two home runs in one game? Now that's something different. She had four career homers in high school going into the game, including two in her freshman season.
Oxley went deep in the first inning when she followed Kyndal Cornelius’ RBI single with a two-run shot over the left field wall. Oxley went deep again in her next at-bat with another two-run homer in the third inning.
“I’m an RBI, base-hit girl,” Oxley said. “I don’t try for home runs. If it happens, it happens.”
The second home run, especially, surprised her.
“The first one, after I hit it, I knew it was going out,” she said. “The second one, I started laughing going around the bases thinking, there’s no shot that just happened.”
As great as Oxley’s pitching has been over her career, her hitting can’t be overlooked. After hitting over .400 in each of her first three seasons, her average is a respectable .333, and she leads the team with 28 RBIs.
Bartow finished with 11 hits as Cornelius went 3-for-3 with an RBI and is now batting .453. Shay Narcisse went 2-for-3 with two RBIs to raise her team-leading average to .467.
If nothing else, Bartow’s effort agains East River shows that it is focused on the game at hand instead of looking ahead to the potential matchup against Melbourne. Even Oxley admitted that can be a challenge.
“I think it's always hard in life to not just be in the present for a lot of people,” Oxley said. “A lot of people are always like, oh my gosh, they'll be doing something, but tomorrow I have to do this. So it's hard as a human being to do that. But I think as a team, I feel like coach always tells us this is the most important game right now. So whenever we're there, we're in the moment we're cheering. I think our team is at a very good spot right now. I think that we have a good working lineup right now, and I think our defense has gotten better every year has gotten better.”
6A-3: George Jenkins routs South Lake
LAKELAND — George Jenkins feasted on Groveland South Lake pitching, piling up 15 hits en route to a 16-5 victory.
The quality of opposing pitching will now go to other extreme, when Jenkins faces Melbourne and ace Jasmine Francik in the regional semifinals at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Francik, a senior who is headed to Florida State, boasts a 0.22 ERA with 377 strikeouts in 161 innings. She handed Bartow its only loss earlier this season.
It took a few innings for George Jenkins to heat up on Thursday. South Lake jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning, but Jenkins scored two in the third, two in the fourth to take a 4-3 lead and eight in the fifth.
Freshman Kamryn Wallis continued her recent hot hitting by going 3-for-4 with a double, four RBIs and three runs scored. Payton Spears doubled and went 2-for-5 with two RBIs and two runs scored. Elis Correa had three hits with three RBIs, and Riley Pate went 3-for-4 with two RBIs.
5A-2: Auburndale’s Honeycutt hurls no-hitter
AUBURNDALE — Auburndale managed just four hits, but with pitcher Jordan Honeycutt tossing a no-hitter, that was more than enough to send the Bloodhounds past Dade City Pasco, 6-0.
Auburndale (12-14) will play at Seminole Osceola, the region’s No. 2 seed, in the semifinals at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Honeycutt struck out 13 batters and only one walk prevented a perfect game.
Auburndale scored one run in the first and two in the second. A three-run fourth inning put the game away.
Hailey Bradley drove in two runs, and Kendra Strickland had two of the Bloodhounds’ four hits. Strickland doubled and scored twice. Ailenid Lozada singled and drove in two runs, and Kathryn Devore singled and drove in a run.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Lakeland-area results from FHSAA softball regional quarterfinals
