PREP UPDATE: St. James softball holds off Pike Road; St. James baseball beats MA
St. James’ Peyton Dees slides into home to complete an inside-the-park home run against Pike Road. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
One team had spent its spring break at a Gulf Shores tournament, competing against one of the toughest schedules in school history.
The other took a break from softball during spring break.
The contrasting styles showed in Thursday’s game between St. James and Pike Road. The Trojans scored four runs in the fourth and emerged with a 5-1 victory as ace Emily Needham held the Patriots to one hit.
Needham went the distance, allowing a sixth-inning triple by Ameria Anderson and a wild pitch that allowed Anderson to score, but otherwise held the Patriots hitless, walking three and striking out 11.
“Emily is pitching about as good as I’ve seen her,” St. James coach Mark Hall said. “They’ve got some young hitters but today she had all of her pitches working, so that’s kind of tough. She kept them off balance and kept them chasing.”
Pike Road (14-9) threatened in the fifth with a pair of walks, but were retired in order in four of the seven innings.
“This is our first game coming out of spring break and it rained earlier in the week so we’ve been off,” Pike Road coach Patricia Ball said. “It’s been 14 days since we’ve played a game. (Needham) did a great job. We struggled with that curveball a little bit. And then our pitching, (starter Christina Juarez) walked five and hit one. We’re trying to get settled back in from the break.”
The game was scoreless until the third when Peyton Dees hit a line drive that carried over the right fielder’s head and Dees motored around the bases for an inside-the-park home run.
In the fourth, St. James loaded the bases as Mary Olive Maddox singled to left and Emily Darby and Ava Stanford drew walks. Sydney Johnston drove in a run with a sacrifice fly before KK Hall doubled in a pair of runs and scored on a Dees’ double to left.
“They adjusted to the pitcher’s speed, I wish they would have adjusted a little earlier,” Hall said. “Eventually we started squaring up some balls and hitting them hard. The Juarez kid kept us off balance but in the fourth inning we got to her a little bit. Peyton hits the ball and we’re up 1-0, then really the big hit where I felt comfortable was KK’s hit up the middle where we scored two runs and stretched out the lead a little.”
St. James (13-9-1) will host a junior varsity tournament this weekend before returning to action in a Monday home game with Prattville Christian Academy, while Pike Road will return home to host its own softball tournament on Friday and Saturday.
“I feel good about us,” Ball said. “Today wasn’t our best day on the field but we’ve also been 14 days without a game. We’ll get it back together.”
BASEBALL
St. James 3, Montgomery Academy 2
Cooper Wright pitched a complete game and withstood a late Eagle threat as St. James opened 3A Area 6 play with a 3-2 win over Montgomery Academy in a pitchers’ duel on Thursday night at St. James.
St. James (11-6, 1-0 in area play) and Montgomery Academy (7-6, 0-1) resume the best-of-three series on Friday at 4 p.m. at MA’s Bowen Field. The first game of the Friday doubleheader will count in the area standings, while the second game serves as a tiebreaker should the two teams finish tied in the area.
In Thursday’s game, the Trojans took an early lead in the first inning as Ethan Beard was hit by a pitch, stole second, advanced to third on a missed infield pop up and scored on a single by Clint Shores.
The Trojans added two runs in the bottom of the fifth to make it 3-0. Shores led off with a walk and advanced to second on a sacrifice. He went to third on a bloop single by K.J. Jackson and then was knocked in by Cole Anderson. Jackson later scored on a sacrifice fly.
Wright had allowed only two base runners in the first five innings, a fourth-inning double by Parker Cook which missed being a home run by a few feet and a fifth-inning single by Walton Norrell.
The Eagles scratched together two runs in the top of the sixth. After a groundout, Rick McBride walked and Cook was hit by a pitch. McBride scored on a double by Will Hardin and Cook scored on an infield error on Oscar Fiore’s grounder. With runners on second and third and one out, J.B. Braswell atoned for his previous error by making a great play on a sharp grounder, holding the runners before throwing to first for the forceout, and a soft grounder to first to end the inning.
The Trojans almost stole a run in the bottom of the sixth as Beard tried to score from second on a wild pitch but was tagged out at the plate by catcher Cook.
Wright allowed one hit in the top of the seventh but no further damage wrapped up his win.
Houser was 2 for 2 with a single, a double and a walk, one RBI and one run scored to lead the Trojans offense.
For Montgomery Academy, Cook went 1 for 3 with a double, Hardin went 1 for 3 with a double and an RBI and Norrell went 1 for 3.
Fiore was tagged with the loss for the Eagles, allowing seven hits and two earned runs while striking out three in 4.1 innings. Hardin pitched the remaining 1.2 innings of no-hit ball, walking one.