Painful finish: Eustis hits game-winner in seventh, denies Baker County in softball final
Baker County's championship run came up one inning short.
Catcher Kendall Kemp hit the deciding single in the bottom of the seventh inning and Eustis edged Baker County 1-0 in Thursday night's Florida High School Athletic Association Class 4A softball championship.
Eustis batter Jensen Luke reached second on a one-out double in the seventh, only the third time the Panthers (26-2) reached scoring position. Kemp then squirted a grounder just past second base, scoring pinch-runner Kaylen Bublitz with the season-ending run at Legends Way Ball Fields in Clermont.
That was the only run all night in a tight pitchers' duel between Baker County junior Chloe Woods and Eustis senior Skyler Cloud. Woods hurled a four-hitter, striking out seven. Cloud, committed to Seminole State College, was likewise dominant in a three-hit shutout.
The game turned into a near carbon-copy of Wednesday's Class 2A final between University Christian and Evangelical Christian, when the teams held scoreless for six innings only for the Fort Myers school to dash UC's hopes in the bottom of the seventh.
The Wildcats (21-6), who had won their last 11, put together only one serious threat, when Haley Marker and Masyn Barlow led off the second with back-to-back singles. A sacrifice bunt moved them to third with one out, but Cloud escaped and ended the game by retiring 15 Wildcats in a row.
Eustis won its second FHSAA championship in four years, having also captured the 2021 trophy.
The defeat ends Baker County's pursuit of a second title to go with their championship from 2015. The Wildcats are set to graduate senior infielders Haley Marker and Brooklyn Davis, but most of the lineup is on course to return, including the pitching tandem of Woods and Rylee Walker.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Baker County-Eustis: FHSAA high school softball final 2024
