The Tullahoma High School softball team hosted Lawrence County Monday night and fell 14-9.
The Lady ‘Cats could not overcome the five run first inning from Lawrence County. The big inning from the visitors was the difference. They had four hits in the innings and a sacrifice bunt that plated four and then an error from Tullahoma scored the fifth run. Tullahoma fought back, as Kylee Holt battled in the first at-bat of the game working a 10-pitch walk. She stole second base and then Addye Norman singled. Norman was thrown out trying to take second. Then Madison Goad went yard on the eighth pitch of her at-bat to cut the deficit to three runs. Kaitlynn Gattis followed it up with a hard hit ball that found a glove for the second out of the inning. Brinley Gillam singled on a line drive and then Sara Tate put a ball in play that just couldn’t find grass. Tullahoma went into the second down 5-2.
Amaya Sharp had a quick six pitch second inning to get three outs. Tullahoma also went three-up, three-down in the second to go into the third still 5-2. Lawrence County added four more runs in the third. The last two scored on an error form the Lady Wildcats. Tullahoma got those two runs right back in the bottom half. The third started exactly like the first with a Holt walk and Norman single. Gattis picked up an RBI on a groundout to the right side of the infield. Gillam then doubled to bring home Norman from third. Sharp shut down the visitors in the fourth, the only base runner reached on an infield single. Tullahoma continued to crawl back into the game scoring another run in the bottom half on a single from Norman to score Margaret Lynch, who singled earlier in the frame. Goad narrowly missed having her second homer of the night and making it 9-8 during the next at-bat. Tullahoma trailed 9-5 after four innings.
Lawrence County added three insurance runs in the fifth. They hit a leadoff triple and then sacrifice bunted the runner in from third. With two outs and a runner at first, they hit a ball of the center field wall to make it 12-5. The Lady ‘Cats kept battling, Gattis walked to leadoff the fifth then Gillam and Tate hit back to back singles to load the bases with zero outs. Miaha Johnson hit double down the right field line to clear the bases and make it 12-8. Tullahoma’s rally ended with a line out and then a double play on a ground out with the baserunner going for third. Lawrence County scored another run on a ground out in the sixth but Sharp left two runners on to keep the score at 13-8. The Wildcats got the run back in the bottom half with two outs. Goad singled and then scored on an error from first. Gattis put the ball in play for Tullahoma. The visitors scored another run in the seventh off of a Lady ‘Cats error to make it 14-9. Tullahoma did not add any runs in the seventh.
Norman and Gillam led the Lady Wildcats with three hits each. Goad had two. Holt, Tate, Johnson and Lynch all had one. Holt took two of the team’s four walks. Gattis and Tate drew the other two. Johnson had the most RBI with three. Goad had two from her two-run homer. Norman, Gattis and Gillam had the other three RBI for the Wildcats. Sharp went the distance for Tullahoma totaling 139 pitches, 81 were strikes.
Tullahoma will go to Giles County on Thursday and then to Marshall County Friday for back to back district contests. The Lady ‘Cats are 2-3 in district play so far and 6-6 overall.
