Story and Photos by Rusty Ellis
The White County Warriorettes punched their ticket to the Region 4-3A Championship with a 3-0 win over Marshall County on Tuesday.
Both teams came out strong defensively out of the gate, but it was the Warriorettes who struck first in the third inning on a Caydra Parker RBI double to score Abby Guy.
White County starter Addison Abell continued to shut down the Marshall County bats, and the Warriorettes added two more runs in the fifth on an Ashlynn Phillips two-run single to push the lead to 3-0.
Abell shut down the Tigerette bats over the final two innings to seal the deal, ending the game with a strikeout to close down the 3-0 win for Sparta.
“We just battled all game,” said WCHS head coach Jerry Roberts. “(Abell) carried us, and we finally got the bats going. I felt like we finally started squaring the ball up there, and we got the job done.”
The big moment in the game came in the fifth inning for Marshall County, as their first two batters reached and gave them two on with no outs down 1-0. It didn’t seem to phase Abell however, as she set down the next three hitters to preserve the lead.
“That was a big inning,” Roberts said. “First and second with nobody out, and they didn’t score. To keep the momentum up for us, that was a huge deal.”
It’ll be a quick turnaround for the Warriorettes, as they’ll host Lincoln County on Wednesday at 6 P.M. For White County to win the region championship, Roberts knows they’ll need a similar effort to Tuesday night’s and then some.
“They’re going to come in and they’re going to hit it,” Roberts said. “We went down and saw them on Monday night, and they can hit. We’re going to have to play defense and scratch some runs and try to win a ball-game.”
