FT. WALTON BEACH, FLA. — North Laurel coach Chris Edward’s summed up his team’s come from behind 14-13 win over Henry County on Tuesday the best way possible.
“There are gonna be days like this when you don’t play your best and make mistakes,” he said. “Today was definitely that day. We were lucky today to pull out a win. I still really like where my team is right now.”
Most teams wouldn’t recover from allowing 13 runs, 18 hits, and an inning where the opposing team scored seven runs, not North Laurel somehow withstood the storm.
“Another good win for our girls,” Edward said. “Henry County gave us all kinds of trouble in the early going. We also made some mistakes that we haven’t been making. We finally made some adjustments at the plate and put some good swings on the ball. We then started putting the pressure on them and they made a couple of mistakes.”
“The bad news from today is we didn’t play great,” he added. “We made some mistakes that we don’t usually make, a couple of errors also. The good news is that we still done enough really good things to win. Saige McClure with a home run and five RBI to close the gap when we were down early. Emily Sizemore was Emily Sizemore today with four hits while Katie Sams was on base all day again and scored a bunch. Braylee Fawbush drove in our last two runs with two outs that gave us the lead.”
The Lady Jaguars (10-1) fell behind 3-0 after two innings of play before scoring three runs in the third inning to tie the game at three apiece.
But that’s when the game seemed to have taken a turn for the worst.
Henry County exploded for seven runs in the top of the fourth inning to take a 10-3 lead. North Laurel answered with a run in the bottom of the fourth while the Lady Wildcats responded with a run of their own in the top of the fifth to take an 11-4 edge.
And that’s when the tide turned again, but this time, in the Lady Jaguars’ favor.
North Laurel answered with an eight-run bottom of the fifth inning to take its first lead of the game at 12-11. Henry County answered with two runs in the top of the sixth to reclaim a 13-12 lead, but Fawbush’s two-run single in the bottom of the sixth that gave her team a 14-13 advantage turned out to be the game-winning hit.
Despite the Lady Wildcats putting runners on first and second with two outs in the top of the seventh, freshman Haley Cooper slammed the door shut, and recorded the win by retiring the side.
“Reagan Isaac started for us and threw OK,” Edwards said. “We gave up some runs, both earned and unearned. Haley Cooper came in and pitched a little more than two innings to get the win. Haley done such as great job today. She gave up a couple of runs but she stopped Henry County from getting a big inning that would have closed it out. Great gutsy performance from her. Go Jags.”
