ROCKINGHAM - The No. 1 seeded Lady Raider softball team has had a good run at downing opponents this season.
The Lady Raiders (22-3) have plundered the Lady Pirates and Lady Buccaneers; they’ve dehorned the Lady Rams and Lady Bucks; and they’ve clipped the wings of the Lady Falcons and have taken the fight right out of the Lady Scots.
But now they’re looking to declaw the No. 8 Lake Norman High School Lady Wildcats in the third round of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association 4A state playoffs. Richmond will welcome in Lake Norman at 7 p.m. on Tuesday. It is the first time, in head coach Wendy Wallace’s memory, that the two teams will square off in the postseason.
After receiving a first-round bye and grabbing the top spot between the 48 teams in this year’s competition, the Lady Raiders rang the bell of Independence High School Friday, sending the Lady Patriots home for good with a 12-2 six-inning mercy-rule victory.
In that ball game, senior catcher Owen Bowers launched two multi-run home runs and finished the night with a game-high six RBIs. The two shots brought her season total to seven. Junior Taylor Parrish also stayed hot at the dish, as her solo shot in the early innings helped Richmond jump out to a 10-0 lead.
It’s that same fast start that Wallace would like her team to come out with when the Lady Wildcats (19-5, I-Meck Conference) roll into town.
“Offensively, we know we’re going to be facing a left-handed pitcher who throws in the mid to upper 50s,” Wallace said at practice Monday. “We have to be patient at the plate, hit strikes that are in the zone and not chase pitches that are out of the zone. We’re working on being selective at the plate. I’m hoping to come out fast and put runs up early. That’s always our goal.”
Lake Norman finished the regular season tied for first with Mooresville High School with an 11-1 I-Meck record, but fell to the Lady Devils in the I-Meck conference championship game 7-4. But even with that loss, the Lady Wildcats were awarded an opening round bye when it took the No. 8 seed in the Western bracket. Mooresville earned a No. 3 seed, and will next face off against No. 6 Northwest Guilford High School in the third round.
Last Friday, the season seemed in jeopardy for Lake Norman, as it entered the bottom of the sixth inning trailing No. 9 David W. Butler High School (Matthews, N.C.) by a score of 4-1. But the Lady Wildcats would scrape together enough runs late, scoring five in the bottom half of the sixth inning. Lake Norman would escape with a 6-4 win.
On the season, according to Maxpreps.com, the Lady Wildcats are batting .407 as a team, and have relied on left-handed senior pitcher Alyssa Ingle to get them through the campaign. Wallace anticipates that Ingle will take the circle in Tuesday’s third-round, win-or-go-home game.
Ingle has accumulated a 14-3 overall record with a 2.90 earned run average. She has struckout 65 batters, walked 34 and has a .259 opponent batting average. According to scout reports, she tends to throw on the outside corners, which is something Wallace noted that her team has worked on all season, especially during Monday’s practice.
But in order to do any damage against the Lady Raiders, Lake Norman will have to find a way to silence the explosive barrage that is, and has been, their offense this year. Through 25 games played this year (regular and postseason), Richmond is batting .410 as a team, with junior Savannah Lampley boasting a team-best .570 average and has collected a hit in 23 of her last 25 games. Her hot bat in the leadoff spot is also ranked as the eighth-best average in 4A across the state, as is also second in the state with hits (49).
With every starter batting at least .361 or higher, the Lady Raiders have blasted 46 home runs on the season, something that has become a regular occurrence at the plate. In the last two games, Bowers has launched three home runs for six RBIs, and freshman Paige Ransom still leads the team with nine. Bowers, along with Bri Baysek, Kayla Hawkins and Greyson Way all have seven blasts on the year.
As great as home runs are, Wallace admits, she still wants her team staying focused in each at-bat and hit the ball when it needs to be done. And it’s also the defensive side of the ball that can help win championships.
“We want to stay aggressive because that’s when we know we hit better,” Wallace said. “We’ve got to play good defense and make the plays we’re supposed to make. At this point (in the season), all teams are good and we can’t give them extra outs. Greyson does good job getting ahead and getting outs early, and we want to stay away from letting them get on base.”
At the time of this publication, Lake Norman had recorded 89 stolen bases in 91 attempts. While it’s something that caught Wallace’s eye, Bowers has been dominant behind the plate in catching runners attempting to steal all season.
While an eight seed is impressive, the numbers may be a little misleading for the Lady Wildcats. They play in a relatively tough conference, as three other schools (Mooresville, Hough and North Mecklenburg high schools) all made the 4A state playoffs. However, despite winning 19 games this season, Lake Norman is ranked as only the 21st-best team in 4A because of a low strength of schedule (2.6). In comparison, Richmond, which is the No. 1 4A team in the state, has a strength of schedule of 10.9.
The Lady Wildcats’ most notable win can in 7-5 fashion over Mooresville, which they split the regular season series with before dropping the I-Meck tournament championship. Lake Norman has also seen its share of blunders, its worse loss of the season being an 11-10 slugfest to Jay M. Robinson High School, which finished the season 6-16.
Taking the circle for the Lady Raiders Tuesday night will be their trusty right-handed ace Way. Pitching every inning for Richmond to date this season, the junior pitcher has gone 22-3 with a cool 1.93 ERA, which is top 10 in the state, according to Maxpreps. In her last outing against Independence, she threw six innings, and gave up just two earned runs on three hits. Her season strikeout total is now at 218 in 152.1 innings pitched, which is 27 Ks better than Hoggard High School’s Jessi Mathis.
Wallace is confident in her team’s ability to win and move onto the fourth round, which is tentatively set for Friday. But there’s always that twinge in the back of her mind that things won’t go the way her team needs it to go, so she’s preparing them just in case.
“I’m cautiously confident,” Wallace said with a smile. “In the playoffs, any team can beat another. I think they’re (Lake Norman) a really solid program and they’re at the top of their conference. If we play our game, I feel good. But if we come out flat and kick the ball around, then we’re going to be in trouble.”
First pitch against the No. 8 Lady Wildcats is scheduled for 7 p.m., as the Lady Raiders continue their quest for their first state championship title in school history.
