By Matt Turer — mturer@ky3.com
@MattTurer
Reeds Spring, Mo. — A two-run lead. Two outs from a district title. Twenty-game winner Abbey Gann on the mound. That was the situation for West Plains as Lori Vedder dug into the box with two Rogersville Wildcats on first and third in the top of the seventh.
The count 1-1, Vedder swung. The ball shot off the bat, into the dirt and found itself in the glove of West Plains freshman second baseman Abbi Thompson. Thompson tagged Lindsay Schatzer, turned to her left and gunned out Vedder at first for a walk-off double play and a district title.
“Great play by Abbi Thompson,” West Plains head coach Don Long said. “Just a smart heads-up play for a freshman.”
CLICK HERE FOR ROGERSVILLE VS. WEST PLAINS PHOTO GALLERY
As for Thompson, well, she was close to speechless after sprinting off the field and jumping into the arms of her teammates.
“I knew it was over,” she said. “I don’t know what was going through my mind. It was craziness. I was excited.”
Thompson’s work at second cemented Saturday afternoon’s 6-4 West Plains win and district title, sending Rogersville home after a high-energy day in Reeds Spring.
“This bunch are just kind of blue-collar girls,” Long said. “They work hard, and that goes a long way in life, too.
“This was the fifth time we’ve been in the championship. We always come away with second. This [district title] was our goal.”
The Zizzers jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the third inning when Gann took Rogersville starting pitcher Hunter Bledsoe deep to left field, her second home run of the season.
“Any time you can get momentum going it’s great,” Gann said. “To have my team score some runs for me, it helps so much, and any time I can do that for myself, it’s pretty good.”
But Rogersville rallied in the fourth, answering with three runs of their own. Shelby Ince led off the fourth inning with a home run, drawing the Wildats within three, 4-1. Vedder drove in Julia Marshall and Taylor Williams drove in Vedder on a pair of singles. Rogersville had a chance to tie with top bat Hailey Brown up with Williams on second with two outs, but Brown popped out to end the rally. Williams finished 2-3 with a triple. Ince was 2-4 on the day.
West Plains extended its lead to 5-3 in the bottom half of the fourth when Kasey Bonham singled in Emily Riggs.
Rogersville would close the gap again in the fifth on a Schatzer RBI single that drove home Brianna Banker. But like the fourth inning, the Wildcats would fail to drive home the tying run, leaving runners in scoring position.
The Zizzers brought home an insurance run in the bottom of the fifth when Hadley Taylor took advantage of an Ince error and scored. West Plains failed to build on that lead in the sixth despite loading the bases on Rogersville’s Julia Marshall, who got out of two tough jams, allowing one earned run over 3.2 innings of relief. Taylor and Gann both had two hits for West Plains, both contributing doubles.
Gann allowed four runs (two earned), seven hits and four walks over a seven-inning complete game, striking out two for her 21st win of the season.
Rogersville starter Bledsoe allowed four runs (two earned) over 2.1 innings.
The Wildcats were plagued by fielding mistakes, finishing with five errors by five different players.
The Wildcats will return everyone from this year’s 17-win team, a good sign looking ahead to 2017.
West Plains is set to meet Class 3 — District 12 champion Monett (18-8) in sectional play at 4 p.m. Wednesday.
West Plains has won 19 of 22 since a 1-3 start to the season.
“I believe we can go as far as our hearts let us go [[in the state tournament] and as far as we’re willing to go,” Gann said.
