AHSAA SOFTBALL: Plainview tops PCA twice to earn 3A state title
Planview’s Haley Brown slides safely into second with a stolen base as PCA’s Arielle Williams takes the throw in Saturday’s Class 3A championship game in Oxford. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
OXFORD -- For the first six innings of Saturday’s 3A championship game between Prattville Christian Academy and Plainview, both teams were locked in a fierce struggle that could go either way.
But the longer the Panthers labored in their pitches, their fielding and their offense, the more PCA coach Randy Stough worried about his opponent’s capabilities.
“I thought they were like a tiger in a cage,” Stough said, “and when they decided to break out, they were going to be tough to handle.”
Plainview erupted for nine runs in the seventh inning to rout the Panthers 13-4 and force a second game in the double elimination tournament, where they repeated the performance with a seven-run fourth inning in a 13-0 victory to win the 3A championship.
“We really didn’t hit well the whole tournament except for the first game,” Stough said. “We relied on good pitching and defense and it got us to the championship game but the wheels fell off in the seventh inning of the first game and they just kept spinning after that.”
Prattville Christian (35-10) grabbed the upper hand on Friday with a 3-2 win over the Bears to advance to the championship game, but Plainview (43-8-1) destroyed Houston Academy 12-1 in the afternoon while the Panthers had the afternoon off and were waiting for the 6A title game to finish. By the time they took the field two and a half hours after their planned 5 p.m. start, PCA would manage just four runs in 12 innings while Plainview was pounding out 38 runs in a trio of Saturday games.
The Bears kept up a constant pressure on PCA’s pitchers and seven fielding errors by the Panther defense only added to the frustration.
“Some of that was we weren’t getting the calls we thought we should get,” Stough said, “but they flat out swung it. They hit pitches that were off the plate. In all the research we got on them, I was scared to death of them. Sure enough, there was good reason for it. They just outplayed us and outhit us. It’s hard to stop a good team like that.”
In the first game on Saturday, Riley Sweeney had a solo home run in the first inning and Sarah Williams had a two-run double in the third that tied the game. Plainview added an unearned run in the fourth, then battered starter Landyn McAnnally and reliever Sweeney in the seventh with a three-run home run by Jada Hampton and five consecutive hits that followed, including Hannah Regula’s two-run double that ended the day for Sweeney.
“We left a lot of runners on base (in the first meeting),” Plainview coach Jeff Brooks said. “We hit the ball fairly well, we had 10 hits. We just stayed focused and went back with the same game plan we had -- lay off the high stuff and drive everything in the strike zone.”
Alivia Messick entered the circle for the Panthers in the second game and was battered for three runs in the first inning with the help of Elaine Puckett’s two-run double and three more runs in the third that pretty much finished off the Panthers.
“We didn’t want to let up,” Brooks said. “We ended the first game hitting it pretty good and we wanted to come out and jump on them to start with and we were able to do that. They stayed focused and swung at good pitches.”
Tidmore finished the two games with four singles, while Puckett had four hits, four RBIs and reached base eight times in nine plate appearances as the Bears brought home the first-ever championship in a girls’ sport.
“It’s amazing,” said pitcher Tessa Word, who pitched in both games and reached base in all three plate appearances in the second game to earn most valuable player honors.” We’re the first girls’ sport at our high school to win a state championship so I’m pumped.”
“It’s great for the school, it’s great for the community, it’s great for the girls,” Brooks said. “The elementary kids, the youth league softball kids, can look up to these girls. We have a great group of girls that play. I’m just so proud of them.”
Joining Word on the all-tournament team were Puckett, Tidmore and Halle Brown, along with McAnnally and Jersee Carter.
Both teams could reprise their roles in 2022. Plainview will lose just three seniors, while PCA will lose only McAnnally and Sweeney.
“We have high standards every year and our goal is to get here and win the blue map (championship trophy),” Stough said. “I can’t argue with this group fighting and clawing to get here, we just didn’t finish like we wanted to. But we’ve had a great run in the last three or four years and hopefully we can get back to work and get back here next year.”