SICKLES – The Geary slow-pitch softball squad earned two wins last week during District play at Lookeba-Sickles, but couldn’t overcome the host Lady Panthers as their season ended Thursday.
Geary came from behind to defeat Macomb 13-12 and later bounced Cement from the tournament with a 12-1 run-rule victory. But the Lady Bison were beat soundly by the powerhouse Lady Panthers by 23-1 and 16-1 scores, sending Lookeba-Sickles on to the next round.
Geary’s first game against Macomb nearly sent the Lady Bison into the loser’s bracket. Geary gave up five runs in the first inning alone, but came back and narrowed the deficit to 5-4 after one.
After three innings the score was knotted at 7, but the Geary offense went stagnant for two innings before reawakening in the sixth. The Lady Bison plated six runs in that frame, swinging a 12-7 Macomb lead into a 13-12 advantage. Macomb put runners on in the top of the seventh, but a dramatic play at the plate ended the game and preserved the Geary victory.
“That comeback was proof that they were able to execute the skills that we have been working on since the fall,” head coach Bridget Goodknight said after the tournament. “I could not be more proud of them on that.”
The victory propelled Geary into the winners’ bracket to take on a Lookeba-Sickles squad that had already blasted Cement earlier that day. Kadance Pitts got the start on the mound in that one, relieving first-game starter Linda Silva, but Pitts was rocked for 13 runs over the first two innings before Goodknight turned the ball back over to Silva.
The Lady Bison defense did no favors for either pitcher, as fielding and throwing errors elongated the innings and allowed the Lady Panthers to end the game after three frames, 23- 1.
Facing elimination, Geary came back out and made a statement against a Cement squad that had just eliminated Macomb. Silva turned in a brilliant complete game, allowing just one run in the fourth and allowing no Cement batters to reach base in the second or third innings.
After a four-run first inning propelled by four singles, Lottie Peters led off the second with an inside-the-park homer. Geary scored five more in the third, jumpstarted by a leadoff triple from Aubrey Lawson. The game ended in the fourth inning when Morgan Coppage drove in Pitts and Silva with a single, extending the Geary lead to 12-1 and bouncing Cement from contention.
Winning the tournament would have required two more victories over the Lady Panthers. Geary allowed three runs in the first frame of the rematch, then loaded the bases with nobody out in the top half of the second. But none of those girls scored, and Lookeba-Sickles started to pile on. The game ended after three innings, again, as a 16-1 Geary loss that propelled Lookeba-Sickles to the next round.
Goodknight hailed the progress her girls have made since the winless fall fastpitch season, and said getting to the next level will require trust. “It’s just going to be consistency and building those relationships with those kids,” she said, “so they can trust what we’re doing as a coaching staff.”
Goodknight is excited about what the team is adding and bringing back next season. “It’s going to be amazing,” she said. “That eighth-grade group coming up has got a lot of talent and a lot of power. They’re coachable, and I think that’s going to be a key thing. … They’re willing to learn, and they want to get better. That drive and that motivation is going to propel them forward even further.”
The softball team is losing few seniors, meaning Goodknight will bring back all her starters from the District squad as the team looks to build on its successes this fall.