Lady Scots softball crushes Pinecrest

LAURINBURG —The Lady Scots softball team defeated the Pinecrest Patriots by a score of 14-0 in five innings on Thursday night at Scotland High School. Scotland improves to 15-1 (10-0 in conference games) on the season with their 14th consecutive victory while Pinecrest falls to 4-14 (3-7 against conference opponents) with their second straight loss. The Scots have taken both regular season games from the Patriots after taking the first matchup in Southern Pines back on March 18 in a 17-0 final.

With this game originally scheduled to be played on Friday night and a contest against Midway on Wednesday night getting canceled, Scotland had a bit of readjusting to do with their schedule. Head Coach Adam Romaine detailed that they way they prepared for the Patriots on offense was a bit different than normal as a result.

“We actually didn’t hit at all yesterday, we were doing a bunch of defensive stuff,” Romaine said. “Today we came out half an hour to 45 minutes earlier and did double rounds of hitting. We know what kind of pitching they got so we did something new with the cage to keep their hands back and drive the ball and it worked to their advantage tonight. I was proud of the way they stayed back there hitting the ball hard.”

Scotland dominated the contest from the start, with Avery Stutts sending the Patriots down in order in the top of the first before Scotland scored nine runs in their half of the inning. The Scots sent 14 batters to the plate and accumulated eight hits as well as a walk while benefitting from a pair of Pinecrest fielding errors.

After Stutts sent down all three Patriots batters on strikeouts in the top of the second, Scotland added another run in the bottom of the inning. Emily Sampson drew a one-out walk before Addison Ratley reached safely on an error. Addison Johnson would drive in Sampson with a two-out RBI single to increase Scotland’s advantage to 10-0.

Stutts would pick up three more strikeouts in the top of the third (though the perfect game was lost with Ashley Lee getting hit by a pitch) while Khloe Radford added a solo homer in the bottom of the inning to bring the Scots’ lead up to 11-0. Stutts added three strikeouts to her night in the top of the fourth, though lost the no-hitter when Emily Hatcher reached on a single.

Marissa Smith would leadoff the bottom of the fourth frame with a single and score on an RBI single from Johnson. Stutts would then help herself out with a two-run homer that made it 14-0.

Johnson went 3-3 (led team in hits) with three RBIs and three runs scored. Stutts led the team in RBIs with five while going 2-4 with a run scored. Dawson Blue went 2-3 with two RBIs and two runs scored.

Scotland will be back in action on Monday night when they travel to Sanford for a matchup with Lee County at 6 p.m. The Scots beat the Yellow Jackets 10-0 in Laurinburg back on March 21. They will then stay on the road for a game against Freedom Christian Academy on Tuesday night.

After the cancelation of the Midway game, Romaine believes that the addition of the Freedom Christian matchup will help give his team a good test as they prepare for the stretch run of the season. With the way Easter falls on the calendar this year, keeping everyone sharp will be a challenge that Romaine looks to navigate over the next few weeks, starting with three games next week including the regular season finale against Richmond on Thursday.

“We got three games next week cause we added a game with Freedom Christian next Tuesday at their place,” Romaine said. “It’ll be a third, fourth round type of playoff team.”