Stories

Walking it off: Madison softball beats Goochland with Seale homer in 12th

Photo: John Berry

Regardless of of how it ended, you couldn’t get but all too upset if you were on the losing end. The Region 2A East championship game took 12 innings to decide a winner. For half the game it was 1-0 in favor of Goochland. For the other half, it was 1-1 until Madison County’s Emily Seale delivered a no-doubter, walk-off home run in the bottom of the 12th to give the Mountaineers the win.

 

“We’ve got to do a better job of hitting, moving runners over but Goochland had great pitching too, so who knows,” said Madison coach Jesse Yowell. “It’s great having two girls like (Logyn Estes) and Emily where you have as much confidence in one as you do in the other. And our defense, it was great on Wednesday and it was good again tonight. We didn’t crack under pressure. We came out ahead again so hopefully we can do it two more times.”

 

It was the second time in three days that the Mountaineers played a 12-inning game. Coming off a 2-0 win over Nottoway to lock up a Group 2A state tournament bid, the Mountaineers had both Seale (who pitched four innings of that contest) and Logyn Estes (who pitched eight innings) to help break up the load. Estes pitched the first seven innings and Seal took over for the last five and picked up the win in relief. Estes struck out nine batters and gave up just three hits and a walk. Seale struck out eight, walked two and gave up no hits.

 

“It was a lot,” Seale said. “We were (both) tired and we knew we had to keep pushing and we came out with a win both times.”

 

Madison had to fight to get it to extras. Goochland took a 1-0 lead in the top of the second when McKenzie Reams hit a ball to the fence and Madison’s Morgan Clark appeared to have made an impressive, fence-crawling catch but the ball suddenly squirted out of her glove, giving Reams a home run.

 

Goochland pitcher Kailyn Spencer then put the team on her back. Spencer pitched all 12 innings and gave up just five hits and one earned run while striking out 11 batters.

 

In the sixth, Goochland threatened to take a 2-1 lead after a wild pitch but Estes ran home and catcher Meadow Anderson delivered a perfectly placed throw to keep things knotted up at 1-1. Madison tied things up right afterwards in the bottom half of the innings thanks to a Carrington Frazier double with one out and Kara Price reaching first on error with two outs.

 

But Spencer didn’t let it bother her. The Bulldog’s ace was locked down after that and got out of a seemingly impossible jam in the bottom of the ninth.

 

With the game locked at 1-1, Madison appeared to be well on its way to a walkoff win when Kara Price led the bottom of the ninth off with a double. A sacrifice bunt put the winning run on third. But Spencer induced a pop-up bunt down the third base line and then came up with an inning ending strikeout to escape the threat.

 

“I think she was just throwing heat and moving the ball really well inside and out, worked in her rise ball and was just all over the plate keeping them off balance,” said Goochland coach Amy Henneberger. “In the end, the errors killed us and if we take those away, it’s a different ball game. But if you’re going to lose a game in (the playoffs) this is the one to lose so hopefully we bounce back.”

 

Goochland put runners on the corners in the top of the 10th with two outs, but catcher Morgan Anderson saved the day when she threw out the runner trying to steal second.

 

The 11th was quiet for both sides, and with the 7-8-9 hitters coming up for the Mountaineers in the 12th, an eventual 13th inning seemed like more than a probability. But Seale changed that as the leadoff batter. After fouling off a pair of pitches, the freshman got her pitch and launched it deep into centerfield.

 

“I was pretty much looking for anything close,” Seale said. “The umpire was calling everything basically and when I saw that one it looked like a balloon to me so I just hit it.”

 

Both teams advance to the Group 2A semifinals. Goochland with face Richlands, the Region 2A West winner (1-0 in eight innings) on Friday at 10 a.m. Madison takes on Lebanon at 1 p.m. on Friday. Both games will be played at Radford University.

 

Comments

comments