Late flurry lifts Lady Aces
The Owensboro Catholic High School softball team exploded for six runs in the top of the seventh inning and held off Apollo down the stretch to capture an 8-5 win in the first round of the 9th District Tournament on Tuesday at OCHS.
The Lady Aces (17-13) advance to face Daviess County (24-6) in Wednesday’s district championship game.
Catholic scored all eight runs across the sixth and seventh innings after trailing 3-0.
“They battled in there, they stayed right there in the moment,” said OCHS head coach Jeremy Phelps, whose squad left seven runners stranded in the first three innings. “Each girl had a job to do. I told them before, ‘You don’t know who it’s going to be.’
“I told a couple of them before their last at-bat that it doesn’t matter what you did in your first three at-bats, it’s your next at-bat.”
The Lady Aces’ Lily Logsdon led off the top of the sixth frame with a hard-hit grounder up the middle, followed by Emma Riney drawing a walk. Two batters later, Logsdon scored on Harper Latham’s infield fielder’s choice. Maren Riney’s sacrifice bunt moments later scored Emma Riney to trim Catholic’s deficit to 3-2.
“I think the sixth inning, when we’re down 3-0, getting those two runs out of the bottom of our lineup to put us in that position — the same thing happened to us early in the year — and we fought back and got a couple runs instead of trying to have that one big inning,” Phelps said.
Consecutive base hits from Tyranda Stuart and Maci Merritt in the seventh helped set up Hannah Robbins for a game-tying RBI line drive to right field. Three batters later, courtesy runner Taylor Winstead scored on Gracie Dukate’s bunt, and an Apollo throwing error allowed Addilyn Simmons to score and give Catholic a 5-3 advantage.
Latham then belted a three-run homer to left field to extend the Lady Aces’ lead to five runs.
“She didn’t have a lot of confidence in the game, but just having that aggressive nature — fouls a couple pitches off, gets her pitch — that’s what it takes,” Phelps said of Latham, who had only 11 hits entering the contest. “In a game like this, when you’ve got two teams that know everything about each other, there’s no secrets.
“That’s a nice win, plus you get to move on, and that’s always the main goal every year. First, we’ve got to get to region, and then we go from there.”
Apollo (18-14) struck for a pair of runs in the bottom of the seventh but couldn’t get any closer from there. Taylor Clark led off the inning with a home run to left field, and Holder hit an RBI base hit to center before Catholic pitcher Hannah Robbins earned the game-ending strikeout.
“We battled,” said Apollo head coach Stephen Julian. “We scored a couple there in the last inning, and that’ll help us build for next year. Shoutout to our seniors, Mallory Velotta, Hannah Snell and Liz Gardner. They all played their roles this year and played well — a good senior class.”
The E-Gals opened scoring with a trio of runs in the fifth. Velotta hit a one-out single, Clark drew a walk, and Macy Calhoun clubbed an RBI grounder to right field. Two batters later, Abie Butterworth smashed a two-run single to center field for a 3-0 lead.
Stuart finished 2-for-4 with a run for the Lady Aces, and Logsdon scored twice.
Holder finished 3-for-3 with an RBI and a run for Apollo, Butterworth produced two RBIs, and Clark scored two runs.
OWENSBORO CATHOLIC 000 002 6 — 8 7 1
APOLLO 000 030 2 — 5 9 1
WP-Robbins. LP-Julian. 2B-Holder (A). HR-Latham (OC).
