East Clarendon beats Atlantic Collegiate 16-1 to clinch Region 7 No. 1 seed in AA softball state playoffs

         Turbeville – After coming away with a 4-0 victory over Atlantic Collegiate Academy on Tuesday in Conway, the East Clarendon High School softball team decided to really concentrate on its “small ball” offensive concept in Friday’s second game at the EC field.

     The strategy couldn’t have worked much better. The Wolverines scored five runs in the bottom of the first inning with the benefit of just two hits and never looked back on the way to a 16-1, 4-inning triumph.

     The victory improved East Clarendon to 17-6 on the season and 10-0 in Region 7-AA, clinching the region’s top seed in the state playoffs. All the defending state champion needs to win the region outright is a victory in one of its two games with Marion next week.

     “Tonight we came out really aggressive, played some small ball early, kind of ran the bases,” said EC head coach Jason Newsome. “That’s who we are. We made a point to do that early, to try and get a lead early in the game and see if they could chase us down.”

     The home half of the first started with leadoff hitter Bailey Hicks hitting a shot down the right field line for a triple. She soon scored on a wild pitch by Armada pitcher Khia Vest to make it 1-0.

     Karleigh Miller drew a walk, moved to second on a passed ball and went to third on a single by Zoey Culick. After Payton Hanniford struck out, Layke Jeffords put down a beautiful sacrifice bunt and Miller slid in under the tag to make it 2-0.

     That was the first of three straight sac bunts that resulted in a run batted in. Addison Fleming delivered the first, driving in Culick with Jeffords scoring on an error to make it 4-0. Megan Brown then put one down to score Fleming.

     On the inning, the Wolverines used two hits, three sac bunts, one walk, a wild pitch, a passed ball and two errors to plate the five runs.

“When we’re at our best, that’s what we do,” Newsome said. “We try to put pressure o the other team’s defense and try to make them make plays. We did that early tonight and then kind of sat back and swung the bats after that.”

East Clarendon finished with nine hits, four of them going for extra bases, to go with five walks, three hit by pitches and eight stolen bases.

“I think our defense was a lot tighter Tuesday than it was tonight,” said ACA head coach Samantha Ryan, whose team is now 9-13 overall and 8-2 in region play. “I think we put the bat on the ball a lot more tonight than we did on Tuesday, so we turned the bats around but went backwards on the defense.”

East Clarendon scored twice in the second to go up 7-0. The Armada scored their lone run in the top of the third. Angela Malamba drew a 1-out walk from EC pitcher Rylee Atkinson. She reached second on a 2-out single by Annabelle Senecal and scored on an error following a single by Vest.

Any thoughts Atlantic Collegiate may have had of a rally were quickly quashed as the Wolverines scored six runs in the bottom of the inning. Culick had a 2-run double, while Brown had an RBI single and drew a base-loaded walk, Chloe Goff had an RBI single and Hicks had an RBI groundout.

East Clarendon scored three runs in the fourth without an out being recorded to end the game via the 15-run mercy rule. Another double by Culick scored Miller with the game-ending run.

Culick finished 3-for-3 with two doubles, four RBI, a run scored and a stolen base. Hicks was 2-for-3 with the triple, three runs, two RBI, four stolen bases and a hit by pitch, while Miller scored four runs on a hit and three walks while stealing three bases.

Brown finished with a hit and three runs batted in on her birthday, while Goff was 2-for-3 with a double, two runs and an RBI.

Fleming didn’t have an official at-bat as she had a sacrifice bunt, a walk and was hit by a pitch. She scored twice and had an RBI.

Jeffords finished with a run and an RBI, while Addie Knowlton and Kayley Baker each scored a run.

“We’ve been very balanced,” Newsome said of his team’s offense. “We’ve been fortunate enough where the bottom of our lineup hits very, very well. Chloe Goff at the bottom of our lineup is a luxury a lot of teams don’t have. She can hit and she’s aggressive on the bases. When we turn over the lineup, she’s literally that second leadoff hitter.”

Atkinson got the win in the circle, pitching all four innings. She allowed four hits and walked four while striking out three.

“Rylee’s just a freshman,” Newsome said. “She has been a very solid pitcher for us. She’s going to be a really, really good pitcher as she matures and gets older. She wasn’t as sharp as she has been in other games, but she was good enough to when she got into trouble she got out of trouble, made the pitches she needed to make and our defense made the plays behind her.

“She does a good job of moving on to the next batter when she walks somebody or gives up a hit. She has a very short memory, which is important for pitchers. She does a good job of just throwing strikes and putting pressure on batters to make plays.”

Hanniford, East Clarendon’s catcher, picked two runners off of first base to lead the defense.

Picking up the other hits for ACA along with Vest and Senecal were McKenna Garvey and Gabby Ayres.

Despite the tough loss, Ryan likes where her program stands.

“I think up to this point we’ve been trending in the right direction,” she said of the Armada, which will be the No. 2 seed from the region in the playoffs. “I think the difference between this year and last year is we’re really starting to develop a team culture of hard work and everything. They’ve been showing up and doing the work.

“We play a doubleheader (against Kingstree) on Tuesday, so we’ll have a solid week of practice before we start the postseason, so we’ll put that to use.”