COVINGTON, Ga. — On Aug. 10, the Newton High School Lady Rams defeated Heritage High School 5-0. This was the first game of 2021 that Newton played at home.
The Lady Rams were led by their catcher, Sydney Lindsey who drove in two of the team’s five runs.
Coincidentally, it was the final two runs that Newton scored in the contest.
One of the runs she drove in came in the bottom of the fourth inning. Lindsey was facing a 1-2 count with no outs. Then, on the fourth pitch of the at-bat, Lindsey drilled a line drive to left field for a solo home run.
Lindsey delivered the final blow, too, with a sacrifice fly that brought Chasidah Parker home from third base in the bottom of the sixth inning.
Head coach Virginia Tucker-Smith was pleased to see her catcher hit the ball with such power.
“Sydney’s strong,” Smith said. “She likes the high ones and she just got on top of the high one to hit [the home run]. And, once she’s able to get a hold of it, she obviously can hit it a long way.”
On the other side, the Lady Rams held Heritage scoreless. The biggest reason was because of Elle Standard’s performance on the mound.
Standard threw a complete game while striking out six and only surrendering three hits. She also didn’t walk a single player.
To help her out, the defense behind Standard made some impressive plays, too, to preserve the shutout.
Smith couldn’t overlook her team’s defensive performance Tuesday night.
“With the exception of a few situations, everything I called was pitched exactly where it should’ve gone,” Smith said. “We had a solid performance defensively, too, except for the one error we had. But, overall, we played solid on defense.”
Tuesday’s win, at the time, brought the Lady Rams’ record back to .500 at 2-2.
The game followed a weekend spent at Pike County High School where Newton faced three opponents. It won its first game against Lamar County 8-2 and lost back-to-back games 9-4 and 15-2 against Upson-Lee High School and Pike County, respectively.
On Thursday, the Lady Rams faced Brookwood in their region opener and lost 9-1. So now they have a 2-3 record.
Even though it’s early in the season, Smith is still optimistic of her team’s chances for a high postseason ranking at season’s end. Smith just hopes her team gets on board with the vision she has and the goals they aspire to achieve this year.
“This is just as much of a mental game as it is a physical game,” Smith said. “Our girls have to learn to be mentally tough. We also preach to them that you have to forget the last pitch, the last at-bat, the last play and we have to move forward.”
