PREP POSTSEASON: ACA, St. James softball face off after advancing in regionals; Tallassee soccer delayed in semis
COMBINED REPORTS
When Maddie Traywick stepped to the plate in the 10th inning, the Alabama Christian Academy junior was just hoping to do her job.
“I was just trying to get a base hit,” she said. “I was trying to get as many people on base as possible and let the next girl do her job and run us in.”
There was no “next girl” because Traywick crushed an offering from Alexius Key, sending the ball over the center field fence to give the Eagles a 7-5 walkoff win over Randolph County in the 3A Central Regional at Lagoon Park Softball Complex on Wednesday.
“It was unbelievably exciting,” ACA coach Meagan Whisenant said. “I am absolutely proud of them. We struggle to have a dog mentality sometimes, but it really showed today. They had a dog mentality and they fought to the very, very end and it really worked out for us. That was a great team, their defense was solid, they wanted to hit the ball. We struggled to hit the ball but we sure hit it when it mattered.”
After beating Childersburg 15-4 in the regional opener, the Eagles (14-18) would face Randolph County (26-9-2) in a key second-round matchup. A win would get the Eagles one step closer to a berth in the state tournament. Since starting fast pitch softball in 1996, ACA has only missed the state tournament four times (1996, 2016, 2022, 2023) and has more appearances (23) than any other fast pitch program.
“Just because we had a losing season, we’ve played great competition and you’ve seen teams upset team after team this postseason,” she said. “It’s been impressive to see the results and my girls are no exception to that.”
ACA will play area rival St. James today at 9 a.m., with the winner earning a berth in the state tournament. The loser can earn the second qualifying spot with a win at 1:45 p.m.
“I absolutely think we can beat them,” Traywick said. “It’s a mindset. If it didn’t say ‘Trojans’ or St. James’ across their shirts, we would not have a problem at all.”
ACA grabbed a 3-0 lead in the third inning with the help of a walk and a pair of errors, but Randolph County scored a run in the fourth, then added four more in the fifth with the help of a three-run home run by Talee Sims. ACA tied the game in the bottom of the seventh on a two-out single to left by Anna Prempramot to score Izzy Warrick from second.
The Eagles squandered scoring opportunities in the eighth and ninth innings but remained focused on getting the win.
“I just told the girls to have a goldfish mindset,” Traywick said. “Forget everything. As soon as it happens, you made a bad play, just forget it. We’ve got to keep moving on. And I think we’ve done a lot better at that than we did at the first of the season.
“Coming in from that last game that we won, we just wanted to make sure that we didn’t have big heads. We didn’t want to come into this game thinking we’re just going to walk this off, we’re going to win it. We always come in thinking like this is the best team. We’re going to play to our absolute best.”The AISA Class AAA baseball final will need one more game.
St. James undefeated after first day at Central regionals
St. James opened play in the 3A Central Regional at Lagoon Park Softball Complex with a pair of shutouts on Wednesday, defeating Indian Springs 16-0 and Beulah 5-0 to advance to the finals of the winner’s bracket.
The Trojans (35-2) will face area rival Alabama Christian Academy (14-18) on Thursday at 9 a.m., with the winner earning a berth in next week’s state tournament in Oxford.
In the opening round game, the Trojans scored four runs in the first inning and 12 more in the second inning before play was halted in the third inning by the mercy rule. Peyton Middleton and Aleigha Davis combined on a no hitter, which Middleton striking out five of the six batters she faced and Davis striking out three batters in the third inning while walking one.
Sydney Johnston went 1 for 3, scored three times and drove in four runs to lead the Trojan offense. Kaitlin Mitchell went 1 for 1, scored three times and drove in a pair of runs and Lily Stanford went 2 for 3, scored twice and drove in a run. Ava Stanford and Davis also had two RBIs each.
In the second game, Emily Needham allowed just three hits in a complete-game shutout while striking out 12 and walking one.
Tat Shuford went 2 for 4 with a double, scoring once and driving in a run as St. James scored a run in the second inning, two in the third and two more in the sixth. Arden Green went 1 for 3 with an RBI.
Olivia Buchanan went 2 for 3 to lead Beulah (14-14). Madyson Snedigar suffered the loss in the circle, allowing five runs, two earned, on seven hits in six innings of work.
PCA softball back in state tourney
Prattville Christian bounced back from a disappointing loss to Northside by defeating American Christian Academy on Tuesday and earning the Panthers their sixth consecutive trip to the state softball tournament next week.
PCA (27-7) will face Cherokee County in the opening round of the 4A state tournament next Monday in Oxford at 10:45 a.m.
The Panthers were unbeaten in the Central Regional after the first day of competition, defeating Sipsey Valley 9-7 and Bibb County 1-0. Prattville Christian opened play on the second day of the regional against Northside, with the winner earning a berth in the state tournament.
Northside shut out the Panthers 4-0, holding the PCA offense in check. Megan Masters led the offense with two hits.
Laura Beth NeSmith suffered the loss in the circle, allowing three earned runs while striking out nine.
The Panthers awaited the winner of the Bibb County-American Christian Academy game to earn the second qualifying spot in the regional.
Alivia Messick pitched a complete game with seven strikeouts to help PCA to a 4-3 win over American Christian Academy. Peyton Thrash had two hits and drove in a pair of runs, while Kandice Crosby and Chloe Hollon both had RBI hits.
St. James girls soccer reaches finals again
HUNTSVILLE – St. James jumped out to a quick 4-0 lead and cruised to 7-0 win over St. Luke’s Episcopal in the 1A-3A semifinals on Wednesday at the Loretta P. Spencer Sports Complex, earning a repeat trip to the 1A-3A finals.
St. James (16-1-1) will face Donoho (19-1-1) on Friday at 2 p.m. The Falcons beat Madison Academy 5-0 in the other semifinal match on Wednesday.
Katie Brightwell had five goals to increase her record-setting career total to 258. The Trojan senior had 11 shots on goal and made three in the first half and assisted on a fourth.
Brightwell, who has 70 goals this season, scored her first goal just four minutes into the match. She followed with goals at 22:41 on a corner kick and 28:33 with an assist from Hailey Vance. Brightwell assisted on the final first-half goal made by Natalie Barton at the 38:07 mark.
Brightwell got goals at 44:57 and 61:04 in the second half, and Barton managed her second goal on Vance’s second assist of the match at 51:53. Sana Shuford assisted Brightwell’s final goal. Brightwell had three other goals that were remarkably deflected by St. Luke’s goalkeeper Ashlyn Turner, who has 12 saves in the first half alone. Turner finished with 16 saves.
St. James, which lost in the finals to Westminster-Oak Mountain last year, will need a similar offensive effort on Friday against Donoho, which allowed just three shots on goal in its win over Madison Academy.
Tallassee boys soccer semifinal game delayed
HUNTSVILLE - The Tallassee-Gulf Shores Class 5A boys semfinal game was postponed on Wednesday night due to a lightning delay.
The two teams were tied 1-1 at the half when the delay halted play. AHSAA officials chose to move the restart to Thursday morning at 11.
Tallassee is making its first-ever appearance in the AHSAA state soccer tournament.
Glenwood, Lee-Scott split to send AISA AAA baseball championship to third game
Glenwood broke a 1-1 tie in the sixth inning with a squeeze bunt to win the first game 4-1, only to watch Lee-Scott walk off a nine-inning thriller with a Sam Jackson single in a 5-4 victory.
The two teams will decide the AAA state title with a third game in the best-of-three series on Friday at 1 p.m.
“That’s what state championship series are supposed to be like,” Glenwood coach Tim Fanning said. “You’ve just got to give Lee-Scott credit. They took advantage of their opportunities in the second game and we didn’t. We left a lot of guys out there.
“There was a lot of really good defensive plays in the game on both sides. It was high-level pitching. You’ve just got to get big two-out hits to win games. That’s why they don’t give those trophies away. They’re hard to win.”
Glenwood (35-8) stranded eight players on the bases in the fourth, fifth and seventh innings, but did push across a run in the seventh with the help of a Lee-Scott error to force extra innings.
Lee-Scott (37-9) owned a 3-1 lead but left the bases loaded in the fifth as well, finally coming up with a pair of runs in the ninth.
“I think you expect that in a series like this with Glenwood being such a big rival,” first-year Lee-Scott coach Jarrod Cook said. “We didn’t always handle it the right way. But we just did enough. And we haven’t been here, so you can see the tension mounting. But like I just told them, we’ve been here two games now, so we know what to expect. And we’ve got to be better with runners in scoring position.”
After Carter Judah’s RBI single gave Glenwood a one-run lead in the top of the ninth, Barrett Cook got the Warriors started with a pinch-hit single. A walk to Garrett West followed by Ethan Hardee’s bunt that loaded the bases with no outs set the stage for Jackson’s single to the left side of the infield that a diving Jaxson Griggs at shortstop deflected but couldn’t field.
“We feel like we’ve got the momentum going into Game 3, but we know what we’re going to get from those guys,” Cook said. “It’s about slowing the game down for us, having a slow heart beat, and executing.”
Fanning will be aiming for his program’s 23rd state title on Thursday and back-to-back titles after beating Macon East in the AAA finals last year.
“I would say the team with the most experience, you would think it would favor them,” Fanning said. “We have experience as a program but this team doesn’t have very much experience at all. We only return one position player (Griggs) that was a starter from last year.”
Mason McCraine as the starter for Glenwood in Game 1 and was dominant, allowing just five hits while striking out seven. He picked up the win with the complete game.
The Gators led 1-0 until Lee-Scott tied the game in the top of the sixth. But McCraine’s two-run single put the Gators back on top in the bottom of the sixth.
The deciding Game 3 was originally scheduled for Thursday but due to inclement weather, the game has been pushed back to Friday.