Khloe Radford swings at a pitch during Scotland’s victory over East Columbus on Tuesday night at Fairmont High School. Radford led Scotland in RBIs with three, including a solo home run.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
Avery Stutts (17) throws a pitch. Stutts pitched all six innings and had 14 strikeouts in the win.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
Emily Sampson (11) jogs to first base after drawing a walk. Sampson drew two walks and scored a run.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
Addison Johnson (2) catches a popup. Johnson went 2-5 from the batters box and scored two runs.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
FAIRMONT —The Lady Scots softball team defeated the East Columbus Gators in a 10-0 final (mercy rule after six innings) on Tuesday night at Fairmont High School to claim the Robeson County Slugfest Championship. Scotland previously beat Red Springs and Lumberton on Saturday and Monday to make it to the title game and improves to 21-1 overall on the season with 20 consecutive victories. In addition to the team title, three Scots took home some personal accolades as Addison Johnson, Dawson Blue and Avery Stutts were named to the all-tournament team with Stutts taking home MVP honors.
Head Coach Adam Romaine was thrilled with how his group was able to perform against a quality opponent in the Gators. That was especially true when he discussed how East Columbus plays the game a bit differently in their small ball methods, which no team the Scots have faced this year is like.
“East Columbus is a great program, they’re a third, fourth round team in their division,” Romaine said. “We were worried about them coming in because they’re a small ball type team and we have never played a small ball team this year, so we went to practice for an hour and worked on bunt coverage. Luckily Avery came out tonight in a different zone and she allowed the girls not to be able to put the bunt down.”
After a scoreless first inning with just one hit (a one-out single from Blue in the top of the frame), the Scots would grab the lead with three runs in their half of the second. Emily Sampson would draw a walk to start the inning while Kinsey Hamilton followed that up with a double to put runners on second and third with no outs. An error on a fly ball from Addison Lewis and a two-RBI single by Khloe Radford would help provide the runs for the Scots and a 3-0 advantage.
The game would then be uneventful for a bit as both teams went down in order during each half inning until the bottom of the fourth, when the Gators finally got their first base runner on a two-out single from Aleigh Godwin. East Columbus failed to capitalize, however, and remained down by three entering the fifth inning.
Scotland then added onto their lead with two more runs in the top of the fifth. Johnson got the inning started with a leadoff single (advanced to second on the throw) while Dawson Blue drew a walk before they would steal second and third base. Ramsey Hale would drive in Johnson with an RBI groundout while an error on a fly ball from Sampson would allow Blue to score and make it 5-0.
The Scots would proceed to blow the game open with five more runs (all before an out was recorded) in the top of the sixth inning. Khloe Radford hit a solo home run to get the frame started before Johnson reached base safely on a fielding error. A combination of singles from Blue, Stutts and Addison Ratley as well as three walks helped Scotland get the other four runs necessary to win the game after six innings.
Radford led the Scots in RBIs with three while going 2-4 from the plate along with a run scored. Stutts added two RBIs and went 1-4. Johnson and Blue had two hits and two runs scored apiece.
Stutts pitched all six innings and allowed just one hit while striking out 14 batters with no walks. She threw 58 pitches (52 strikes) to the 19 batters she faced.
Scotland will have the rest of the week off before they enter next week’s conference tournament as the No. 1 seed, which will give them a bye into the second round. Their opponent is not known as of this writing.
While winning the Slugfest was a nice confidence boost for Romaine’s team, he is focused on turning the page as the Scots prepare for crunch time of their season with the conference tournament and state playoffs looming. His messaging was simple: take the rest of the week off and enjoy it but be ready to start anew next week.
“The regular season is over so we’re telling the girls tonight put this behind us,” Romaine said. “We’ll start a new season with the conference tournament and take it one game at a time with that and start the process all over again when the playoffs start.”