Milan softball wins on Hughes’ walk-off
MILAN – District tournaments in high school softball are set to begin on Thursday. Milan and Scotts Hill are at different preparation levels heading into tournament time.
Scotts Hill doesn’t know where it will be seeded in the District 15-A tournament because because the Lady Lions have two more district games to play (Riverside and Madison).
Milan though is getting hot at the right time. After beating Obion County on the road Monday night to earn the No. 3 seed in the District 13-AA tournament, the Lady Bulldogs pulled together a seventh-inning rally to beat Scotts Hill 6-5 on Tuesday.
“We are starting to get healthy,” Milan coach Tim Jackson said. “Today, we hit the ball like I wish we had all year. We were hitting up and down the lineup, and we had some key hits.
“This is the way we want to go into the district tournament. We want to stay around and play a while.”
With the bases loaded, Cat Hughes hit a walk-off, two-RBI single to right field to send Milan (21-16-3) to the victory.
“I think these last two wins mean that we have a good chance of winning in the district tournament,” Hughes said. “We have to play as a team. After they took the lead, we had to come together and put our heads together to win.”
The Lady Bulldogs are getting hot at the right time, and on Tuesday, they hit the ball at the right time.
Scotts Hill (20-12) took the lead in the top of the seventh inning (5-4) on an RBI single by Caitlin Mitchell.
In the bottom of the inning, Milan had the bases loaded with one out on a single, fielder’s choice, single and a base on balls.
The Lions got the second out on a throw to home on a fielder’s choice, but Hughes, a sophomore batting the No. 9 spot, took one strike before sending the ball to right field to allow sophomore Courtney Smith and junior Emily Bradford to score.
“I was worried after their run in the seventh, but the bottom of the lineup did it for us today,” Jackson said. “I think our future is bright with one senior, Madison Miller, and we have some young kids really stepping up. Courtney, Kendall [Westbrooks] and Cat are all sophomores.”
Milan had 14 total hits with batters 6 through 9 each having one hit.
“We wanted to win this one for our senior,” Hughes said. “But the future is bright also because the three of us have been playing together, and we know how each other works.”
The game went back and forth with Scotts Hill holding a lead twice early. Shayla Phillips put the Lady Lions up 1-0 in the first inning on an RBI single, but Milan responded in the second inning with an RBI single by Haley Boswell.
Scotts Hill took the lead (2-1) again in the third inning on an RBI single by Phillips, but an RBI double by Kendall Westbrooks and an RBI single by Gracie Kyle put the Lady Bulldogs up 3-2 by the end of the inning.
“[Pitcher] Emily [Bradford] kept us n the game because their 1, 2, 3 hitters were about unstoppable,” Jackson said.
The opposite happened later in the game with Milan extending its lead to 4-2 on an RBI single by Kyle, only to see Scotts Hill tie it up in the fifth inning on RBI single by Harley Bartholomew and Mitchell to set up the seventh inning.
Milan opens District 13-AA play on Thursday at South Gibson against Westview, while the Lady Lions will try to end the regular season with district wins to earn the highest seed possible.
Michael Odom, 425-9754