Lady Rebels win thriller to clinch regional berth
It’s a shame that one team had to lose, but Vestavia Hills came out the victor in a de facto playoff game on Saturday afternoon.
The Lady Rebels took an extra inning to do so, but came away with a 12-11 win over Hewitt-Trussville in an elimination game of the Class 7A, Area 6 softball tournament, sealing their spot in Regionals.
Vestavia Hills came from three runs down twice in the final innings, tying the game at 11-all in the seventh, before Mary Sanders James raced home for the game-winning run in the eighth.
“Seeing her coming home, it was one of the best feelings ever,” said Taylor Coe, the first girl to meet James at the plate.
Coe is one of just two seniors on the team, and the victory meant that much more for a team that lost in the same scenario last season, and missed out on the postseason.
To describe the game as back-and-forth would not be doing it justice. Both teams traded runs in the first inning, as Kailey Walters homered for Hewitt-Trussville and Jessica Perley drove a ground ball up the middle to score Merritt Cahoon.
The Lady Huskies struggled defensively in the bottom of the third, and Vestavia capitalized, putting up a 5-spot. Coe fouled off several pitches to keep her at-bat alive and hit a sacrifice fly to put her team ahead 6-1.
Hewitt-Trussville wasted no time putting up a 5-spot of its own in the next half-inning. Bailey Murphy coaxed a bases loaded walk, followed by 2-run hits from Sara Borden and Hannah Borden to knot the game at 6-6.
The Lady Huskies loaded the bases once again in the fifth inning, and all three scored on the same play, as Walters’ sacrifice fly brought home one, and a subsequent throw sailed into the dugout, bringing in the other two runners.
Despite allowing eight unanswered runs, Vestavia head coach Lissa Walker was confident in her bunch.
“We’d been hitting the ball all day, so going down 9-6 kind of let the air out of you, but we knew we’d been hitting and doing a really good job of getting people on base and scoring,” she said.
A Kate Meloun triple and an infield single by Coe brought the Lady Rebels back to within a run after five innings.
“Every time they would get momentum, we would kind of cut it back off, because we would come in and score runs or do something productive,” Walker said.
The teams were not done exchanging punches, though. Abi Inman ripped a two-run double for Hewitt-Trussville in the sixth, and RaeAnn King responded with a two-run blast to left field, leaving the score at 11-10 heading into the seventh.
“Fought hard the whole time,” Walker said of her team.
That fight and unwillingness to break has been a staple of the Lady Rebels team this season, as they were hungry to get back to Tuscaloosa, the site of regional play.
“I have known since Day 1 this team has a heart and passion like no other team I’ve ever played with and I knew we were going to win the game,” Coe said.
To wrap up the area tournament, Vestavia Hills defeated Spain Park in the next game, 11-5. Since Spain Park had yet to lose in the double elimination tournament, the teams played once more.
The Lady Jags took care of business with a 9-0 win to take home the area crown, but that did nothing to damper the enthusiasm of Vestavia after a long day on the diamond.
The Lady Rebels will begin regional action on Friday, in Tuscaloosa at Sokol Park.