Staff Reports

ROCHELLE — The Wilcox County High School softball team matched up with one of the top teams in their region, Lanier County (13-7), on Monday afternoon. The Lanier County Lady Bulldogs took the win in extra innings by a score of 10-6 in what ended up being a back and forth contest.

Lanier took the first lead of the game in the top of the second, but the Lady Patriots took the lead shortly after using a three run bottom of the third.

Destiny Tisdol and Chastity Stephens started the frame with back-to-back singles and both runners then stole a base. The first Wilcox run of the game then came on an error by Lanier County, and Stephens later scored on a passed ball. Another Lanier County error allowed Carlee Walls to score the third and final Wilcox run of the inning. The Lady Patriots took a 3-1 lead into the fourth inning.

Lanier County retook the lead at 4-3 with three runs in the top of the fifth inning using four singles.

Wilcox quickly came back to tie the score in the bottom half of the frame. Maci Martin reached base on an error, stole second, and was subsequently able to make it home on a passed ball after Jalynn Keene had moved her up to third with a base hit. The teams were tied at 4-4 entering the sixth inning.

The pitching took over the game for both teams during the sixth and seventh innings, as neither team had much of a run scoring threat during those innings, so they went into the eighth inning to decide a winner.

Lanier then took advantage of a couple of Wilcox mistakes in the top of the eighth and used five singles to take a commanding 10-4 lead going into the bottom half.

The Lady Patriots managed to pull the score back slightly closer with a couple of runs in the bottom half of the eighth and ended up falling one base runner short of bringing a potential tying run up to the plate. Jalynn Keene and Lexie Anderson hit consecutive one-out singles to give Wilcox some much needed base runners, and Stephens picked up a two-out RBI single to make the score 10-5. Anna Tripp picked up an RBI single in the next at bat for a 10-6 score, but Lanier County stopped the late rally attempt with a pop out in the next at bat.

Game recap was provided by Wilcox County softball’s GameChanger account.

The Lady Patriots added a big region win over Echols County tonight by a 4-3 score line. Up next for Wilcox is a home game against Turner County on Monday afternoon at 5:30.