Kalia Johnson took the mound twice and along with Alcovy’s deep offensive lineup, led the Lady Tigers to a 2-0 sweep of Westlake to advance to the second round of the state playoffs Wednesday.
Johnson got behind early 2-0 in the first inning of game one, but managed to get Westlake’s Jamea Lyons to ground out on a full count. Johnson made a rare error against the following batter, dropping a pop up that she had secured and allowing Myricle Hawkins to make it to first base safely. Johnson smiled after making the error and retired the next two batters.
Lanie Knight started the inning off with a single, but was thrown out at second when Amber Bagley hit a ground ball. Bagley would make it to second base on Westlake’s attempt to get a double play after the ball went into the Alcovy dugout and the umpire called it a dead ball and moved Bagley from first to second.
Raven Smith, who was terrific at the plate finishing 3-3 with one walk, two RBI and two runs scored, hit her first single to deep left-center and scored Bagley. Johnson walked and Tanisha “Skeeter” Williams hit a pop fly to deep center that was dropped allowing her to make it to first safely as Smith crossed third heading home, but she was out by a mile and Alcovy had runners at the corners. Alexis Nolley hit a single to left-center to score Johnson and the Lady Tigers ended the inning up 2-0.
With the bases loaded and two outs at the top of the third inning, a ball was hit to Nolley at third. She fired home to get the out, but the ball was dropped and Westlake scored its lone run of the game.
Alcovy turned up the offense in the bottom of the third inning. Smith started it with a single to right before scoring on a triple from Johnson. Skeeter would ground out before Nolley hit a ball back to the pitcher that resulted in Johnson being thrown out at home.
Autumn Bagley followed with a single that put runners on first and second. An error off a hit from Emma Waddell scored Nolley and a double from Corley Thacker scored Autumn to extend Alcovy’s lead to 5-1 over Westlake.
Alcovy added three more runs in the bottom of the fourth inning from Smith, Johnson and Skeeter. Smith would get the game-winning RBI in the bottom of the fifth, scoring Amber Bagley to win the game 9-1 on mercy-rule.
Game 2
After about 30 minutes game two started and the Lady Tigers were batting first.
Knight started it off with a single to shallow-center field. An error allowed Amber Bagley to reach base before Smith popped out and Johnson walked to load the bases. Another Westlake error at shortstop scored Knight off a hit from Skeeter.
With the bases still loaded, Nolley walked and Amber scored. Another walk scored Johnson and a hit from Waddell that was dropped in center field scored Skeeter.
Thacker hit a single to score Nolley and Knight followed with a single that scored Autumn. Westlake brought in a new pitcher, but the Lady Tigers managed to score two more runs to take an 8-0 lead after the top of the first.
The field was mostly quiet except for the cheering Alcovy fans and one very disgruntled loud Westlake fan. There was a feeling of discouragement from the Westlake team, although the fans acted like the Lady Wildcats were the No. 1 seed and Alcovy was the No. 4 seed.
The Lady Wildcats showed resilience and bounced back on offense. Lyons hit a single to start the inning and the next batter, Hawkins, was walked. Amilya Little hit a triple to score Lyons and Hawkins before being knocked in by a triple from Marissa Holmes. Lady Tigers’ assistant coach Kelly Guglietta a.k.a “Coach G” called time to get the team together and regroup at the circle.
Johnson proceeded by striking out the next three batters and Alcovy got out of the inning up 8-3. Neither team scored in the second inning, but Alcovy got its momentum back in the third and put the contest out of reach.
The Lady Tigers scored six runs in the third inning and five more in the fourth to win 19-4, again by mercy-rule.
“I think our hitting was a lot better than it has been which is great because the girls have been really trying hard to make sure that they’re hitting the ball and getting on base,” Guglietta said.
“We moved the line around a little bit today. Moving Emma, our catcher, down. She hits a lot to the left side so that kind of helps us with people on base to be able to tag up and go through. She’s also good laying down the bunt as well,” Guglietta added. “We’ve kind of moved around, knowing people that are strengths and where we can kind of move them in situations. It actually happened to be lots of situations that we practiced, but we were able to execute on so they did a really good job with that tonight.”
Alcovy will host Mill Creek Wednesday in another best-of-three series.
