Story and Photos by Rusty Ellis
The Upperman Lady Bees took home a big early-season victory on Tuesday with their 13-4 win over Macon County.
Both teams started out of the gate slow, but it was the Lady Bees who took an opening 1-0 lead on a bases-loaded walk from Kira Hancock in the first inning. Morgan Green added onto the lead with her sacrifice fly in the second inning, scoring Jayla Cobb and running the lead to 2-0.
Macon County scored their first run in the third inning, but the fourth inning is where Upperman began to create some separation. RBIs from Green, Allie Jennings and Mel Pride ran the lead back up to 5-1 in the fourth inning.
The Tigerettes added two more runs in the bottom half of the fourth, but then Upperman really blew the game open with a five-run fifth inning, highlighted by Jaycee Sweeney’s three-run home run.
Starting pitcher Leah McElhaney settled into the circle at this point, as she put together a four-run (two earned), complete-game effort to earn the win in a 13-4 victory for Upperman.
Leadoff hitter Addison McElhaney paced the offense with four hits and four runs scored, while Sweeney had two hits, including her home run, and drove in four runs for head coach Dustin Williams.
“Team came out and played with great effort and great attitude,” Williams said. “It’s early in the season, so we haven’t won the World Series yet, but any time you can come into Macon County and get a win is a good thing.”
The fourth and fifth innings proved to be the difference in the game, and Williams attributed that to his team’s ability to put the ball in play and force Macon to make plays.
“We put pressure on the defense, and that’s the key for us,” Williams said. “We did a really good job of putting some traffic on the bases in the fourth and fifth innings…I think we scored four of our 13 runs with two outs, so that’s always a good thing.”
With an offensive performance like this, McElhaney’s performance would be easy to forget, but Williams says it’s just more of what he’s seen from her throughout her career and she’s just getting warmed up.
“I can’t say enough good things about Leah McElhaney,” Williams said. “She’s used to this, this is the norm for her…she was able to put her head down and grind. Hats off to her on locating her pitches and doing a good job for what it took for us to win tonight.”
