'This is the year': Tecumseh softball makes big statement by handing Caddo first loss

TECUMSEH — Sometimes a pitcher’s best remedy after a tough performance is a quick turnaround.

Tecumseh senior hurler Serenity Jacoway received that opportunity bright and early on Friday morning.

One day after struggling against Purcell in a rare loss, Jacoway and the Savages returned to their home field for a 9:30 a.m. game against an unbeaten Caddo team that was ranked No. 1 in Class A and possessing a stout 21-game win streak to start its season.

Caddo will just have to begin a new streak.

“We played a lot better today than we did yesterday,” Jacoway said after Tecumseh edged the Bruins, 4-3 in six innings, on the second day of the Dale-Tecumseh fastpitch softball tournament. “Today I worked my curveball a lot better on the corners and spotted my fastball a lot more precisely. … And worked more today on getting ahead in the count and being able to throw everything I wanted to.”

True to her strategy, Jacoway threw a whopping 20 first-pitch strikes and worked her curveball on the outside of the plate and allowed just five hits and three runs with five strikeouts against the potent Caddo lineup. Jacoway’s early effort gave the Savages’ offense enough time to grab the lead with a run in the fifth inning and two more in the sixth before Jacoway sealed the win with the final three outs.

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“It just makes me feel more confident in the circle,” Jacoway said. “If they score, we'll be able to back it up and we can match what they bring.”

The win pushed Tecumseh – the two-time defending state runner-up in Class 4A – to a robust 20-2 win-loss record before continuing the tournament against Chandler later in the afternoon.

“It’s a great tournament,” Tecumseh coach Chad Trahan said. “We have got elite teams and any time you can put yourself in a chance to great people, it is just going to prepare you for a regional and hopefully a state tournament.”

In addition to the performance of the Tecumseh offense, Jacoway has also received a boost from the return of junior catcher Jessi Hull. While Jacoway has been the No. 1 starter in the circle for Tecumseh in each of her four varsity seasons, she has built a winning chemistry with Hull behind the plate over the past three. That winning combination was briefly interrupted at the beginning of this season as Hull spent significant time playing first base as she recovered from a January surgery to repair a hip labral tear.

“It felt right,” Hull said of her time at first base. “I felt the coaches knew what they were doing and that was what I could do for my team and I was happy to be there. And I was going to play that role the best I could for ‘Jac,’ our pitcher. She absolutely produces on the home mound and I thought I could have her back at first.”

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Hull made her first appearance at catcher Aug. 25 against Howe and returned to full-time catching the following week.

“When Jessi is back there, she will always honest with me, no matter what,” Jacoway said. “If I missed it, she will let me know and I am grateful. She will always have my back and pick me up.”

Last November, Jacoway verbally committed to play college softball at Texas-El Paso.

“I am really excited to get down there and have fun with the team and figure out my role,” Jacoway said.

Jacoway and Hull started out as youth players on the same team who dreamed of being like their big sisters on Tecumseh’s varsity squad. Fast forward five or six years, and the terrific tandem has helped the Savages reach the last two state championship games in Class 4A.

The only hurdle left is to win it and get Tecumseh its first softball state title.

“It’s huge,” Hull said. “It’s what makes practices so much more energetic It just makes you work harder. Every day. It’s one play, one out away from winning that game. Coach preaches that a lot and this year I am really taking that to heart because this is it. This is the year. There is not a whole lot of time to be messing around.”

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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma high school softball: Tecumseh hands Caddo first loss