Junior Morgan Singletary hits a triple in the second inning Wednesday night against Hoke County.
                                 Neel Madhavan | Laurinburg Exchange

Junior Morgan Singletary hits a triple in the second inning Wednesday night against Hoke County.

Neel Madhavan | Laurinburg Exchange

<p>The Lady Scots’ defense fields the ball as a Hoke County runner rounds second base Wednesday night.</p>
                                 <p>Neel Madhavan | Laurinburg Exchange</p>

The Lady Scots’ defense fields the ball as a Hoke County runner rounds second base Wednesday night.

Neel Madhavan | Laurinburg Exchange

LAURINBURG — Going into the seventh inning Wednesday night against Hoke County, down a run, Scotland (6-2) softball head coach Adam Romaine knew he needed to come up with a plan at bat for the Lady Scots to scrap together the two runs needed to win.

But, the Lady Bucks (0-9) managed to add a run to their lead in the top of the seventh to extend their lead to two. So, Romaine had to toss his original plan in the trash and change things up at the last minute.

“At that point, it was all in the girls’ hands — they have to swing the bats,” Romaine said. “I told them they have to dig deep — how bad do you want this?”

Pretty bad, it turns out.

Leading off in the bottom of the seventh, junior Olivia Hyatt got a base hit to start things off. Then, Hoke County pitcher Adriana Miller walked sophomore Sydnee Dial.

Up next, was junior Morgan Singletary. A wild pitch from Miller allowed Hyatt and Dial to steal third and second, so now the Lady Scots had the tying runs in scoring position and the winning run at the plate with no outs.

A couple more pitches, and Singletary was now facing a full count. But, like Romaine said, Singletary was able to “dig deep,” and she smashed a walk-off 3-run home run right down the middle of centerfield to lift Scotland to a 6-5 win the Lady Bucks.

“It felt good because we were struggling,” Singletary said. “I’ve been in a slump since the beginning of the season, so it feels good to kind of work my way out of it.”

Singletary said she prefers to hit backside or outside pitches, which Miller was throwing a lot of during the game.

“I think the first couple pitches she threw me weren’t the fastest, so I had to adjust my timing and adjust to the speed,” Singletary said. “My goal was that if I pop it up, to make sure I hit it out because they had been catching a lot of pop ups.”

For most of the game, the Lady Scots had struggled at bat, hitting a lot of those pop ups and high fly outs into the outfield.

Of a possible total of 21 outs in a game, 15 of them were fly outs. Romaine said he attributed that to their hitting struggles against slower pitching.

“They knew we have big hitters in the lineup, so they had their girls five to six feet from the fence,” Romaine said. “Defensively, they played the game as best as they could have, it’s just hard to defend the home runs.”

Scotland totaled just five hits all game, which included Singletary’s RBI triple in the second inning, junior Taylor Waitley’s solo home run in the third and then Singletary’s 3-run walkoff.

In the circle, Dial pitched all seven innings, giving up five runs off 13 hits and finishing with seven strikeouts.

Next up for Scotland is a pivotal matchup against current conference leaders Purnell Swett on Friday in a game that was rescheduled from Monday. The Lady Scots currently sit alone in second place in the conference standings one game behind 7-1 Purnell Swett.

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Reach Neel Madhavan at 910-817-2671 ext. 2751 or [email protected]. Follow on Twitter at @NeelMadhavan.