Harvey Simpson
Cordele Dispatch
Cordele —
CORDELE — For an inning and half, it looked like a youthful Georgia Christian team was going to give Crisp Academy all it could handle Tuesday in the Region 2-A GISA softball opener for both schools.
The Lady Generals, who last week had been beaten 17-2 and 17-12 by Fullington Academy, struck for three runs in the first and two in the second to twice take leads over the Lady Wildcats.
In the end, though, coach Erin Davis’ home team prevailed 17-5 to run their record to 6-3 heading into a 4:30 p.m. home game today vs. the Central Fellowship team it beat five days ago, 21-9.
“It really started out as if it was going to be a tight game as they’ve got some good bats and play pretty good defense,” Davis said. “Their big problem is they struggle in the pitching department and in the end we were able to take advantage of that by drawing a lot of walks.”
After spotting its guests three first inning tallies via a pair of free passes and a double, Crisp pulled even in its initial at-bat. Ashley Athon’s triple plated Kayla Childers and Jay Jay Yawn who had singled. Athon later came home on a wild pitch.
The Lady Generals went right back on top in the second, scoring twice on a hit and two Lady Wildcat errors.
That advantage proved to be short-lived as Crisp immediately took advantage of five walks, a hit batsman and base hits by Athon, Paige Jackson and Molly Parker to score seven times.
The resulting 10-5 lead grew to the final count in the third when the Lady Wildcats again pushed across seven runs and did so without benefit of a single hit in the frame. Eight walks, a hit batsman and numerous wild pitches, passed balls and stolen bases figured in that outburst.
“I thought we wound up playing well in all phases as we hit the ball better than we had been doing, our defense was good for the most part and Kristen (Greene) again pitched well (allowing just three hits while fanning eight and walking two),” Davis said.
“This was a good way to launch region play as those are the games we’re going to be stressing most for the remainder of the regular season.”
