ROCKINGHAM - After waiting patiently for exactly a week to hit the diamond and face its first opponent of the 2018 North Carolina High School Athletic Association 4A state playoffs, the Lady Raiders softball team didn’t seem to skip a beat Friday.
Ranked as the No. 1 overall team in the 48-squad tournament, Richmond (22-3) powered its way past No. 17 Independence High School (Charlotte, N.C.) in mercy-rule fashion, eliminating the Lady Patriots 12-2 under the lights on Richmond’s campus.
The last time the Lady Raiders had played a game was in the Sandhills Athletic Conference championship last Friday. Beating Jack Britt High School 7-2, the SAC tournament finale win was more than enough to guarantee Richmond a first round bye and a seven-day period to prepare.
“For the most part, I was pleased with the way we came out and hit,” head coach Wendy Wallace said after the game. “I knew we’d be a little anxious at the plate tonight because we hadn't seen live pitching in a week. But we hit the ball really well tonight. There were some times we had base runners where we could have capitalized earlier in the game, but a win is a win, and we’re going to roll with it.
“Owen (Bowers) had a great game with her two bombs, and she’s seeing the ball really well,” Wallace added. “Top to bottom, we hit the ball when we needed to and put the ball in play.”
On Tuesday, the Lady Patriots (15-9) upset No. 16 Hough High School (Cornelius, N.C.) by mercy-ruling the Lady Huskies 12-1 in the opening round. But it wasn’t the same for Independence Friday, as it was the free-swinging bat of Richmond’s senior catcher Owen Bowers that ended the away team’s season for good.
On an upward climb over the last half dozen games of the regular season, Bowers had raised her batting average to .338 at the start of Friday’s competition. But her 3-for-4, two-homer, six-RBI performance accounted for half of Richmond’s offense and helped the Lady Raiders advance to at least the third round for the fifth consecutive year.
It was Bowers’ first multi-home run game this season, and the two bombs brought her season total to seven on the year. She also hit a solo home run against Jack Britt last week.
Bowers got things started in the bottom of the first with a no-out, two-run shot to straightaway left field. After battling through the seven-pitch at-bat against Independence starting pitcher Kayla Douglas, Bowers connected on a full-count change up that sailed over Jaylin Adkins’ head. Trotting home in front of her was junior Savannah Lampley, who led off the inning with a hot-shot up the middle that careened off Douglas and into shallow right field.
Douglas would help the Lady Raiders out once more before the opening inning ended, as Richmond sent nine batters to the plate. After loading the bases, Douglas walked sophomore left fielder Madison Jordan to give Richmond a 3-0 lead.
In the circle for Richmond was junior strikeout pitcher Greyson Way, who made her 25th consecutive start of the season. Through the opening four innings of play, Way dominated Independence’s batters, keeping them scoreless and not facing more than four batters in a single inning. She finished the night with a line of six innings pitched, allowed just two earned runs on three hits, struck out six batters and walked four others.
Way’s quick start to the game allowed the Lady Raiders to fulfill a goal that Wallace has wanted executed in every game this season, that being her team’s ability to “jump out ahead early and score a lot of runs.” After three runs in the first, Richmond would tally four in the third, and three in the fourth to make the game 10-0.
In that span, it was junior Taylor Parrish who cleared the fence next for the Lady Raiders. Hitting the second of Richmond’s three dingers in the second-round contest, Parrish sent a 2-2 pitch to left field that had just enough mustard on it to clear the wall. It was her third homer of the year, all of which have come in the second half of the season.
Up 4-0, Richmond would pound back-to-back singles by Jordan and freshman Payton Chappell. Two at-bats after Chappell’s base knock, Bowers struck again when she belted a 2-2 pitch to dead center field, and raced to first as she watched the ball zing over center fielder Brianna Grant’s outstretched glove.
“I just went in relaxed and not really worried on what I was going to do,” Bowers recalled of her first home run after the game. “I locked down and kept my eye on the ball. We knew she (Douglas) was going to pitch us outside and throw change ups. I felt like a change up was coming even though it was 3-2, and I stayed back and hit it out.”
Richmond would stretch Bowers’ second-homer lead to 10-0 just an inning later. Independence head coach Amanda Larry pulled Douglas at the start of the bottom of the fourth inning, replacing her with Adkins. The sophomore relief pitcher found herself in trouble immediately, as she allowed back-to-back singles to Brianna Baysek and Kayla Hawkins, and plunked Parrish in the left tricep to load the bases.
In the next two at-bats, freshman Paige Ransom would draw a walk to score Baysek from third, and Jordan would score Hawkins on a fielder’s choice to shortstop Maya Douglas. Parrish aided in allowing Hawkins to cross the plate, as she made a “smart play”, according to Wallace, to dodge the initial tag and force Douglas to have to make the throw to third base.
Bowers capped off her six-RBI night when she smacked a hard grounder through the left side of the infield for an RBI single that scored Ransom from third.
Way’s scoreless bid ended in the top of the fifth when she walked two batters and gave up a two-out, two-RBI double to Kinglsey Reardon. The two-bagger eliminated the mercy-rule score, and it was Way and Baysek who would come up big and deliver in the bottom of the sixth inning.
Way hit a one-out double to score Chappell from second, and moved Lampley to third. In the next at-bat, Baysek smoked a grounder through Adkins’ wickets to score Lampley and end the game to send Richmond onto the next round.
The Lady Raiders bats collected 15 hits on the night, with Bowers leading the way with three of her own. Baysek, Chappell, Hawkins, Lampley and Way all had two hits, and Jordan had a second-best two RBIs. Four other players collected one RBI on the night, and most notably were Parrish’s homer and Baysek’s game-winning single up the middle.
UPDATED: Saturday, May 12, at 11:45 a.m.
With the road to the Western Regional Finals rolling through Rockingham, the Lady Raiders will welcome in No. 8 Lake Norman High School in the third round Tuesday. The Lady Wildcats (19-5) came back from a four-run deficit to defeat No. 9 David W. Butler High School in the second round Friday night. Wallace said her team will regroup on Monday and be ready for the third-round matchup.
“We had some miscues on the bases tonight, and I want to make sure we tighten down on things like that,” Wallace said about what needs to happen to continue to get better. “We’ll come in Monday and get a scouting report together (on Lake Norman). We just have to make sure that we’re prepared for what we’ll face and for the type of pitching we’ll see.”
“It’s really good for us to come out swinging tonight,” Bowers concluded of her team’s efforts moving into the third round. “We’re definitely going to try and push it harder next game and get a win.”
Tuesday’s game is tentatively scheduled for 7 p.m.
