Richard Winn Falls to Holly Hill in Series Sweep; Baseball team Ends Season Friday
This is a subtitle for your new post
By WORTHY EVANS
Holly Hill - The Holly Hill Academy softball team had just rallied for three runs against Richard Winn Academy in the fifth inning to tie Game 2 of the SCISA Class A state championship series.
The second game of the best-of-three series Tuesday at RWA’s softball field had gone back and forth. The Eagles jumped to a 4-1 lead in the first inning, but the Raiders battled back to a 5-5 tie going into the bottom of the fourth inning. There, Richard Winn scored three runs to take an 8-5 lead.
So when Holly Hill relief pitcher Shelby Hinson was in a jam with the bases loaded and nobody out in the bottom of the sixth, it appeared that Richard Winn was about to jump ahead once again.
Good fortune suddenly fell upon the Raiders. Meghan Guzzi grounded a pitch right back to Hinson, who instinctively tossed it to catcher Milly Kate Prescott for the force out at the plate. Prescott then fired to first baseman Kinlee Steigler for the second out of a double play.
Hinson walked Langley Thompson, but got Abby Lewis to ground into a fielder’s choice to close out a scoreless inning.
Lifted by a stunning flare of defense, the Raiders scored four runs in the top of the seventh and Hinson sat down the Eagles in order in the bottom half of the inning to close out a 12-8 victory, a series sweep, and the second straight state championship.
“We’ve talked about being rally killers, that’s the goal,” said head coach Kallie Knight, whose team has won three state championships in the last four years. “If you’ve got the bases loaded, if you can make some big play like that, sometimes it will shut down things. We’ve done that a ton this year whether it’d be double plays or something that goes right for us.”
Holly Hill (17-5) went straight to work with the game still tied 8-8 after the fateful sixth.
With one out in the seventh, Richard Winn relief pitcher Haylee Ann Prevatt walked Kaley Bell and Prescott, and Abby Burleson laid down a bunt that hugged the first-base line, good enough for McLean and Bell to advance to third and second.
McLean then intentionally walked Taylor Wright, and hit Hinson with a pitch to score Bell for the go-ahead run.
Prescott scored Holly Hill’s tenth run on a passed ball as Kinlee Steigler batted. Then Steigler dropped a 2-run single into centerfield that broke the game open.
With a 12-8 lead, Hinson took the circle in the bottom of the seventh and sat the Eagles down in order for the win.
Holly Hill head coach Kallie Knight said the crowd saw the Raiders do what they have done all season—rally.
“We were playing a little bit uptight, made a bunch of errors that we don’t normally make, but that’s the thing about this team is that they do not give up,” Knight said. “It doesn’t matter what inning it is, what out it is, they just keep fighting and fighting and fighting. We’ve had girls that had problems bunting, then all of a sudden they laid down the bunt when it came time to do it.”
Bell went 2-for-3 with a triple and Prescott had two hits. Abby Burleson tripled, Hinson doubled, and Steigler drove in three runs.
Hinson pitched two full innings of relief and got the win.
Hinson also started Game 1 of the series Monday and worked four innings for the win. Holly Hill jumped on Richard Winn (12-8) for four runs in the first inning and two more in the second en route to an 11-8 victory at Holly Hill Academy.
Prescott went 4-4 with two doubles and three RBI to lead the Holly Hill offense. Peyton Strickland and Taylor Wright both doubled, and Burleson drove in three runs.
Seniors Hinson, Burleson, Strickland, and Bell made up the core of Holly Hill softball for the past several years, Knight said.
“We wanted them to go out on top,” Knight said. “My daughter went out on top last year and I wanted to make sure those four girls went out on top this year. That was the main goal for the team. We gelled really well together, we didn’t implode a lot, and we fought for each other the whole time.”
Richard Winn head coach Millie Lambert said this season was a turning point for the program.
“For the last several years we’ve been struggling mentally with fundamentals, but we finally came around,” Lambert said. “We played hard after finishing second in the region and pushed through, and here we are playing for a state championship. It’s been 35 years since we played for a state championship at Richard Winn.
Coach Lambert, who was on the team that last competed for a state title, added that next year’s teams will well remember what was accomplished this year.
“It was very exciting for these girls to be back playing for it again,” she said, “and I know they’ll have many more years coming up where they’ll be playing for it.”
Monday
Richard Winn Academy 0 1 2 0 2 0 3 – 8 5 3
Holly Hill Academy 4 2 0 2 3 0 x – 11 10 4
WP: Shelby Hinson, 4 IP, 2H, 5R, 1ER, 7BB, 4K.
R – Kaila McLean 2-4. Meghan Guzzi 2-4.
H – Milly Kate Prescott 4-4, 2B (2), 3 RBI. Peyton Strickland 2B. Taylor Wright 2B. Abby Burleson 3 RBI.
Tuesday
Holly Hill Academy 1 2 1 1 0 3 4 – 12 10 6
Richard Winn Academy 4 1 0 3 0 0 0 – 8 4 4
WP: Shelby Hinson, 2 IP, 0H, 0R, 0ER, 2BB, 1K.
H –Kaley Bell 2-3, 3B. Milly Kate Prescott 2-4. Abby Burleson 3B. Shelby Hinson 2B. Kinlee Steigler 3 RBI. Taylor Wright 2 RBI.
R – Margaret Swearingen 3-3, 2B, 3 RBI.
