ACR survives late rally
By Brian Lail
Special to the Democrat

Despite a late rally, the Watauga girls’ softball team fell to 4-2 to A.C. Reynolds Friday night at the Carroll Complex.

Down 4-0 in the bottom of the seventh, Watauga coach Brian Vannoy’s message to his team was simply, “Lets get them one at a time.” The Pioneers took his words to the field and put together a strong outing before falling just short of a rousing comeback.

After a leadoff strikeout A.C. Reynolds’ dominant pitching effort looked to continue before things began to turn in the Pioneers’ favor. Jennifer Ballew drew a walk to take first before the second strikeout of the inning left Watauga with one last chance to avoid the shutout.

With a little luck, they did just that. A fly ball to center looked to end things, but was dropped just behind second base. The defensive miscue allowed Ballew to score the Pioneers’ first run of the game.

Watauga starting pitcher Nicole Reilly drove in another run, courtesy of another Reynolds error.

The Pioneers’ rally would end there. Swinging on the first pitch, Hannah Yates launched a rocket of her own to right field. The sharply hit ball had those in the Watauga dugout on their feet, hoping the ball would land to draw the Pioneers within a single run of the tie, but instead ended up in the glove of the Rockets’ right fielder for the final out of the game.

Reilly put together seven solid innings of work for Watauga despite dealing with some lingering soreness.

After pitching out of a bases-loaded, no-out situation in the first, Reilly went on to strike out seven and total only two earned runs along the way.

Those two earned runs were scored in the seventh as the Rockets’ added some insurance to their late 2-0 lead by launching a two-run homer over the center field wall.

“She’s throwing the ball well, she’s hitting her spots, she’s doing what she’s been able to do her whole career and that’s keeping teams down,” Vannoy said of Reilly’s efforts.

A few base-running errors proved costly for the Pioneers.

Confusion in the first inning gave the Rockets two easy outs just as the Pioneers were set for a quick start offensively. What was determined to be a strikeout at the plate led to a series of events beginning with an out at second on a steal attempt just before Chandler Butler crossed home before the final out of the inning.

Another attempt to steal home with two outs in the fourth ended the Pioneers’ second offensive surge of the night after consecutive hits put runners on second and third with only one out. Beth Wilson singled up the middle, which was followed by a bunt by Kayla Kincaid, which rolled down the left field line. It managed to scrape past the Rocket’s third baseman for a double.

However, the Pioneers did not get the hit they needed to drive in both runners.

“We wanted to get runners on and move them over; they’re susceptible to a bunt if you can get it down. We gave ourselves chances, we just didn’t get the hits when we were in scoring position,” Vannoy said.

Both teams struggled to get runners on base throughout the game, but the game evolved into a pitching duel.

“They’re a scrappy team,” Vannoy said. “They’re a young team and we’re pretty evenly matched. We both have some hard throwing pitchers that keep teams down. I knew it was going to be a hard fought game.

Overall I was pretty pleased by the way we played.”