Defending champion Stamford falls 1-0 to Lovelady in state semifinals
AUSTIN — The Lovelady Lady Lions defeated the Stamford Lady Bulldogs 1-0 via the small ball in Tuesday’s state semifinal game.
Lovelady scored the game’s only run in the bottom of the sixth inning on a squeeze bunt. The teams combined for just 10 hits as the Lady Lions sneaked into the final against Crawford, which eliminated Weimar by the same 1-0 score.
Lovelady is 35-4-2. Stamford finishes at 25-5.
It was the first loss to a 2A opponent since 2019 for the Lady Bulldogs, Class 2A’s 2021 champion.
“This loss doesn’t define what they’ve done the last two years,” Stamford head coach Cyndi Herrera said. “They have left their mark.”
After the teams combined for just seven hits in the first 5½ innings, Lovelady’s Mihyia Davis reached base on a bunt single with no outs to start the bottom of the sixth.
Davis, committed to play outfield for University of Louisiana-Lafayette, isn’t just a softball star. She also placed second in the 100-meter dash at this year’s state track and field meet.
Davis previously played travel ball with Stamford pitcher Citlaly Gutierrez for the Texas Bombers.
“I knew she was really fast,” Gutierrez said. “I knew I just had to stay calm, even though the stands were crazy loud. Had to take a deep breath and do my best.”
Davis’ sprinter speed was a difference maker. She stole second base on the first pitch of Scout Lovell’s ensuing at-bat, and Lovell advanced Davis to third with a bunt single.
Davis came home two batters later when Haven Prager drove her in on a squeeze bunt.
“Laying the bunts down, it killed us,” Herrera said. “It’s those small things like that that will come back and bite you in the butt in the end.
“She’s going to steal all day: There’s nothing you can do about it.”
After Lovelady’s score, Stamford had one last chance in the seventh.
Jacelyn Bell got on with a single, but the Lady Bulldogs could not advance her to home plate.
Lack of timely hit offsets strong defense
Though Stamford struggled to contain the small ball, the Lady Bulldogs excelled in the field and in the circle.
Aside from one error, Stamford played a sound game with several flashy plays by outfielders and infielders. A running grab from right fielder Savana Gonzales stuck out, as well as a diving stop for a putout from Macy Detamore at second base.
Gutierrez threw exceptionally, too, striking out 11 Lady Lions.
Unfortunately for the Lady Bulldogs, they never found a timely hit of their own.
Stamford left five runners on base and went 1-for-8 with two outs. The Lady Bulldogs were 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position.
Their best chance came in the fifth inning, when Stamford put runners on first and second with no outs. But a fielder’s choice, a foul out and a strikeout ended Stamford’s opportunity at scoring.
“I told them we have to do a better job of executing when we have runners on,” Herrera said. “It wasn’t just the last few innings; it was the whole game.”
Leaving a legacy
It wasn’t the result any player or coach on Stamford’s side hoped for: The Lady Bulldogs had hopes of repeating a year after winning the state title.
Still, they have much to be proud of.
Stamford won its first state championship in program history in 2021. And this year, the Lady Bulldogs defeated a slew of teams from higher classes — Abilene Cooper (Class 5A), Mansfield Legacy (Class 5A) and Holliday (Class 3A), among others — and won a Region I-2A title.
And Stamford’s senior class of Gutierrez, Bell, Gonzales, Shandlee Mueller and Macy Detamore will go down as the most accomplished at their school.
The state semifinalist trophy is not the hardware they hoped for, but the Lady Bulldogs still went further than almost anyone by even getting to Austin.
“We’ve accomplished so much,” Gutierrez said. “Getting to finish at state is an experience that not a lot of people get to do themselves, so I’m extremely blessed to make it here.”
Herrera added, “They've done things that this softball program — this athletic program — has never done. I told them, ‘Do you know how hard it is to get to state and win it? Do you know how much harder it is to get back?’
“This group right here, they’ll go down in history.”
Carson Field is the area sports reporter for the Abilene Reporter-News. He covers primarily Big Country high school sports. If you appreciate locally driven news, you can support local journalists with a digital subscription to reporternews.com.
This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Stamford Lady Bulldogs fall to Lovelady in state semifinals
