The setting was all too familiar.
Clever had seen the faces of its arch nemesis twice this season, and the last time wasn’t a good meeting for the Lady Jays.
Falling to Forsyth 5-2 merely three days ago cost Clever a sole SWCL championship, making the conference foes co-winners.
The SWCL Tournament gave top-seeded Clever a chance to redeem itself. And when the Lady Jays found out they would face Forsyth again in Saturday’s championship title game, they were also out for a little revenge.
Clever head coach Cheryl Grant said, “This was really important for our girls. And when you’re playing for the championship, it just made it that much more important. We don’t play well sometimes when we play Forsyth because they hit the ball. They’re a great team. They hit the ball well. They’re pretty solid.”
Clever was quick to get on the scoreboard when Lacy Menzie scored on Taylor Farmer’s RBI single.
The next three innings were scoreless, but excitement was near as the Lady Jays were about to pull off a five-run fifth inning.
With Emily Valence and Menzie on third and second, respectively, Allison Nolan hit a 2 RBI double to make the score 3-0.
Next, Clever star pitcher Emily Mendenhall hit a RBI double to run in Nolan.
Mendenhall would soon score on Harper Little’s RBI double to make it 5-0.
Taylor Menzies almost hit one over the fence to get to second base and allow Little to score the final run of the inning.
Already with a comfortable 6-0 lead, the Clever girls added to it in the next inning.
With bases loaded, Mendenhall belted out a 2 RBI double, allowing Valence and Abi Menzies to slide to the home plate (8-0).
A Forsyth error gave Nolan the chance to score a run, and Mendenhall to make it to third.
Finally, Farmer almost knocked one over the fence to run in Mendenhall for the final score of 10-0, giving Clever the SWCL Tournament title.
Also notable, Clever didn’t allow any tournament opponents to score a single run. The team shut out Spokane 15-0 in the quarterfinal round and blanked Blue Eye 17-0 in the semifinals.
“We had lost some games last week and we were kind of down,” Grant said. “We played Strafford, and they’re just an amazing club. And we turned around and lost to Forsyth. For us to come back and win this, and win it in the fashion that we did – dominating – it was a good win.”
“We figured we’d get another shot at them,” Forsyth head coach Tommie Anderson said. “We knew it would be a good chance to see their pitcher some more and get some more experience with her with our bats. We weren’t real consistent today with doing what we should do at the plate. You take away one inning, I feel pretty good about the way we played today.”
Clever (14-3) will finish its regular season this week by playing three games on the road. First up, the girls will play at Exeter at 4:30 p.m. Monday.
Forsyth (13-9) is set to host Seymour at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.
The nemeses will play for the fourth time this year for the Class 1, District 8 title. That tournament begins May 2.
BOX SCORE
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | R | |
| Clever | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 4 | x | 10 |
| Forsyth | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | x | 0 |
