Purvis looked as if it was on its way to opening the state championship series with a victory.
The Lady Tornadoes held a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning, but Itawamba AHS’ lineup came to life and rallied late for a 6-2 win in Game 1 of the Class 4A State Championship series at the Southern Miss Softball Complex on Thursday.
Timely hitting proved to be the biggest difference, with the Lady Tornadoes stranding eight runners on base compared to the Indians’ three.
“They kind of woke up and we kind of went flat,” Purvis coach Lindsay Robertson said. “We have to not let up. We have to keep the same approach every at-bat. We also have to find a way to get timely hits. We left a lot of runners on base. That’s it, we have to be tough everywhere on the field and not let your guard down at this level.”
Purvis (28-7) opened the game with three base hits but left the bases loaded.
After loading the bases again, the Lady Tornadoes got on the board in the third inning. Purvis’ pitcher, Chelsea Regan, drove in a run with a sac fly, but couldn’t plate more runs. In the fourth inning, Tiyah Evans drew a two-out walk with Allee Williamson capitalizing on the situation with an RBI double.
In the circle, Regan rolled through Itawamba AHS’s lineup through four innings as the only runners to reach base came from a walk and a hit batter. She ended the game allowing five earned runs off six hits and three walks.
However, momentum drastically shifted after the Indians plated four runs in the bottom of the fifth. Itawamba AHS (29-7) loaded the bases with one out, but Regan couldn’t pitch out of the jam as she surrendered a 2-run double and then a 2-run single.
“They were finding the holes,” Robertson said. “They were getting the hits that they needed to get. We have got to do the same thing with the number of runners left on.”
In the next inning, the Indians picked up two more insurance runs from an RBI sac fly, and then their final run scored from a sac bunt.
Itawamba AHS pitcher Layla Owens, the reigning Class 4A Ms. Softball, retired six of the last seven batters. Through five innings, Owens gave up seven hits and walked two batters, but she gave up just one hit in the final two innings.
“We know what to do,” Robertson said. “We have faced a lot of pitchers like her. We started off hot as far as hitting, but towards the end of the game, we kind of changed our approach and were hitting the ball straight to them, and not watching it as closely as we needed to.
“We play three for a reason, so we have to force Game 3 and bring it.”
First pitch for tomorrow is set for 1:15 p.m.
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