By Austin Bishop/Special to The Star
It wasn't home field advantage, but as far as West Lauderdale slow-pitch softball coach Cary Luke is concerned, it was the next best thing.
The Knights shifted the site of their MHSAA Class 4A First Round Playoff Series from West Lauderdale to Northeast Park due to poor field conditions and never missed a beat, sweeping visiting Tishomingo County 5-1 and 9-0.
"It wasn't anything we were unfamiliar with," Luke said of playing at Northeast Park. "We played seven games here and I think we were 7-0 coming into today, so we felt pretty good about it."
As well they should have.
After falling behind 1-0 in the top of the first inning of the first game, the Knights rallied to regain the lead and never trailed again while belting out 23 hits in the doubleheader.
Next up for the 18-3 Knights is a Saturday road trip to Houston, which defeated Cleveland 3-2, 3-2 on Tuesday.
The winner of that series moves to the North State Finals next Tuesday.
"I would have much rather played in conditions like this than take a chance on playing in wet conditions that would affect the outcome of the game for both teams. I didn't want to do that."
The Knights used a single and double from Tori Taylor and two hits each from CC Lawn and Julie Jones to take the opener 5-1.
"Winning the first game is huge," Luke said of playing the one-day, best-of-three playoff format. "It sets the tone for everybody. Girls have a little bit of a tendency to get a little down and when you jump on people and get that first win under your belt it takes a lot of pressure off you and just lets you play."
The second game was tight until the last two innings.
"I knew if we could get three or four runs we would be in pretty good shape," he said. "I just didn't know we were going to have to wait until the sixth inning to do it."
The Knights, who hit first in the second game, held a 1-0 lead going into the sixth before some pressure on the Tishomingo defense and a flurry of hits broke the game open as West rolled to the 9-0 win.
In fact, a play that could have snuffed out a West Lauderdale rally in the sixth led to the Lady Knights taking control of the contest.
With runners on second and third and one out the WL hitter smashed a line drive right down the line at third that could have resulted in an inning-ending double play. Instead, the Tishomingo fielder wasn't able to hang onto the ball and in her hurry to get the runner out at first threw the ball away and allowed two runs to score to give the winners a 3-0 lead.
"That was a big play right there," Luke said. "Once we were able to get those runs we just kept adding on."
Paige Davis had a triple and single for WL in the game, while Lawn smacked a single and double and Emily Pogue, Clayton, Adams and Alana Tedder had two singles each. Pogue picked up the win on the mound in both games.
Luke admitted that he was a little concerned two weeks ago as heavy rains kept the Knights off the field, but that resulted in West Lauderdale having to play five games last week.
"We had to play some really good teams and it got us into the flow of things again," Luke said. "We had been off a week and a half with the rain and hadn't done anything. That was big for us. It kind of got us re-energized."
