By Pat Dailey (For OzarkSportsZone.com)
SPARTA — Mt. Vernon freshman third baseman Hali Stokes is headed to the Spring Softball State Championships for the second time in three years, after going 3-for-3 in the Lady Mountaineers’ 13-3 Class 2 Quarterfinal win against Sparta on Tuesday.
Mt. Vernon (35-1) won its 27th straight game by 10-run-ruling the Lady Trojans (26-5) in five innings.
Stokes was at the Class 1 Final Four two years ago as a seventh-grader while serving as a team manager for Purdy’s state championship team. She transferred to Mt. Vernon for her eighth-grade year.
“When we won State at Purdy, that was amazing. But this is so much better,” Stokes said. “It’s the best feeling I’ve ever had.”
Stokes turned batting practice sessions with her father, Ryan, into three hits and three RBIs. She was able to go to her father to simulate the left-handed pitching she and the Lady Mountaineers would see from Sparta southpaw Natalie Wilks.
Ryan Stokes, a former Mt. Vernon baseball, basketball and football player, can pitch left-handed and right-handed.
“Me and my dad worked extremely hard,” Hali said. “He will go out any time I ask and pitch to me. He threw left-handed to me Saturday and Sunday. We busted our butts. I owe this all to him.”
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Stokes, whose cousin, Lacy, led Mt. Vernon’s girls basketball team to a state runner-up finish two years ago, didn’t let post-season pressure get the best of her.
“It didn’t faze me, it was just another day,” she said.
Sparta’s defense felt pressure that Mt. Vernon’s combination of speed and power constantly applied. The Lady Mountaineers broke a 1-all tie by scoring seven runs in the third inning, with the Lady Trojans commiting a handful of miscues to aid the uprising.
“They put us in pressure situations early and often,” Sparta coach Troy McPherson said.
Winning pitcher Harley Daniels had a pair of hits and three RBIs. The right-handed hitting Daniels went the opposite way to right field for both of her hits, but not necessarily by design.
“I was just glad to hit. I don’t care if it’s inside or outside, I just try to hit it hard and hit it far,” Daniels said.
Sparta pitcher Natalie Wilks drove in all three Lady Trojans runs with a solo home run in the first inning and a two-run homer in the fifth.
They were the eighth and nine home runs on the season for Wilks.
Mt. Vernon is returning to the Final Four for the first time since the Lady Mountaineers won a state championship ion 2016.
“They are going to be tough to beat,” McPherson said. “Whoever they draw is going to have a tough go of it. They’ve got a chance to put something together.”
