It was clear from the start that not many runs were going to be scored Friday morning between Bath County and Madison County in the Group A, Division 1 semifinal.
Not when the first two full innings went three up, three down.
Unfortunately for Madison, Bath got the only run it needed in the top of the seventh from JMU-bound pitcher Jailyn Ford crushed a ball into the right centerfield gap for an RBI triple. She promptly retired the top of the Madison order in the bottom half and clinched a 1-0 victory and a spot for Bath County in the state final Saturday morning.
“It just went through the hole there,” said Madison coach Jesse Yowell “We pitched her outside on purpose and it wasn’t on the plate, she just stepped over and got it.”
The game flew by completed in just over an hour, but games with only four total hits often do. Both Ford and the nearly equally effective Jordan Aylor worked fast and efficiently, piling up strikeouts throughout. Aylor, bound for Eastern Mennonite in the fall, struck out five in the game while surrendering just three hits and induced an onslaught of ground ball outs while Ford punched out 13 Madison hitters and held the Mountaineers to just a single hit. Neither gave up a walk, working from ahead in the count for almost the entire duration of the game.
“Jordan’s a great athlete all around,” said Madison coach Jessie Yowell. “She can play in the field, she can obviously pitch and she can hit.”
Anna Kelliher broke up Ford’s perfect game with a single in the fifth, but Ford and the Chargers escaped unscathed. Madison’s game plan coming in had been to try and play small ball against the powerful Bath pitcher with some attempts at bunting. But Bath all but erased that possibility with an unorthodox alignment where the squad’s first and third basemen lined up on every batter halfway down the base line until Ford had registered two strikes. Then the tandem shifted back.
“When we know we’re facing a team that’s good with the bunts and they try to lay it down, we try and squeeze everything in so bunts don’t get by us,” Ford said.
The shift essentially forced Madison’s hand and locked the Mountaineers into swinging away, which is no easy task against Ford. Nobody had attempted the rarely-used tactic against Madison this year, and the Mountaineers struggled to put the ball in play in part because of the change.
“I’m sure everybody they see tries to bunt her because she’s such a good pitcher,” Yowell said. “And we had that intention too.”
The loss ends an exciting season for the Mountaineers, who went 21-5 and won the Bull Run District title, with two of the squad’s three regular season losses coming at the hands of Group AA Orange County. Madison went on a 17-game win streak after the second Orange loss.
Update: Bath County went on to win the state title Saturday morning, beating Holston High 3-0. Ford struck out 15 Holston batters.
