Trail girls fall short at Greenbrier West
May 11—It surely wasn't the 21-1 blowout Greenbrier West administered to Midland Trail last week in Class A Region 3, Section 2 softball tournament play.
Then again, Greenbrier West head coach Tony Hinkle didn't expect it to be.
"It was 21-1, but, yeah, that was a fluke, absolutely. We knew that," Hinkle said after his team came alive late Tuesday in the second postseason matchup between the two squads. "They're a good team. Our pitchers were going super and their pitchers were off (last week) and we took a lot of walks and we hit the ball, got up early and I think they kind of let down, but we knew tonight wasn't going to be like that. They're too good a team."
Just a few days removed from the spanking of the Patriots, the Cavaliers battled back from a 6-3 deficit Tuesday, using two big innings in the game's latter stages at Western Greenbrier Middle School, to earn a 13-9 win and claim the Section 2 title for the first time since 2019, a win which preceded an eventual state tournament run.
In the top of the fifth inning Tuesday, Midland Trail moved its cushion to 5-3 when Sydney Sheets walked after a productive at-bat, moved to second and third on stolen bases, and came home on a sacrifice bunt by Nevaeh Hall. In the next at-bat, Madison Campbell launched a solo home run over the center field fence for a 6-3 Trail advantage.
The Cavaliers dug deep, however, and erupted for 10 runs over the course of the next two innings to move into the driver's seat.
In the bottom of the fifth, West pushed across six runs — all with two outs — to assume a 9-6 lead. Pinch-hitter Hannah Sweet provided the first score when she walked with the bases loaded. After a pitching change by Trail, West's Maddie Fields, Brilee Redden and Preslee Treadway each stepped to the plate and rapped run-scoring doubles in succession. Fields and Redden drove in two runs each with their two-baggers, and Treadway brought home one. That left the score at 9-6 for the hosts.
Midland Trail responded with two runs of its own in the next half-inning to creep back to within 9-8. Sheets rapped a double that hit the fence in center field, bringing home Hannah Beeson, who had reached on a two-out double. Then, the score reached 9-8 when Jenna Stonestreet's two-bagger scored Sheets and left the Patriots trailing by just one, 9-8.
One more set of swings made the difference for the hosts, though. In the bottom of the sixth frame, West loaded the bases on a hit batter and two walks, then Fields took a 1-2 pitch over the center field fence for a huge grand slam and a 13-8 advantage.
"She's our lead-off," Hinkle said of Fields. "We've had five different lead-off hitters all year and we just moved her up. She's so fast."
The Patriots got a final run in the top of the seventh when Layla Tompkins singled, advanced to third on a base hit by Anna Weaver, then raced home for a run on an errant ball after a strikeout. But, the Patriots could get no closer, and the final stood at 13-9.
MTHS assistant coach Darin Minor was subbing for head coach Candace Young, who is out of state for an academic event. "You know, they scored six," Minor said of the first big inning by his team's foe. "They don't score six that inning, you know, that's the ball game.
"This (West) is a well-coached team."
"We got beat by 20 the other night, same team," Minor added. "We didn't hit the ball the other night.
"You know we lost two kids from last year's team. People say, 'Two kids, no big deal.' One of them was the (Meghan) Gill girl. The Gill girl, she's one of the best defensive pitchers I've ever seen in high school. She'd let go of the ball and no matter, she let go the ball and if it was hit, she was on the ball and that's hard to replace."
This year's pitching staff was young, he said. "Our pitchers again, they'll learn. I'll give them credit. They hung in there.
"It always comes down to us and West (Midland Trail was the Region 3 representative in the state tournament the last two seasons)."
"I don't think our pitcher (Redden) was doing as good as she was Thursday, but that being said, we didn't play defense well behind her for three or four innings and let several get by and that's unusual for us," said Hinkle. "But it happens and that keeps another team in the game. But we never get shook; these girls, they're just amazing at coming back and they scored, I don't know, six or eight with two outs and we've been doing that all year.
"The kids don't get shook; the coaches do, but the kids don't."
Of Midland Trail, he said, "They're gonna battle. They're well coached. I hate that Candace wasn't able to be here, but I'm sure she's excited in California."
The Cavaliers (21-2) advance to the Region 3 best-of-three finals against either James Monroe or River View. The championship series will begin next Monday or Tuesday at Crawley.
"We had a good regular season and it didn't really mean anything," Hinkle said. "The season really starts now. It's big for us.
"Looking forward to regionals and trying to get through and to get back to states again, especially for the seniors 'cause they missed, the Covid year was their freshman year and we had such a good team that year and we felt like we could do some damage down there and we lost it and the freshmen didn't get to play with those seniors; we had some good seniors that year."
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MT 220 022 1 — 9 9 2
GW 201 064 x — 13 10 2
Pitcher and catcher — MT: Ryley Shockey, Jenna Stonestreet (5), Kyndal Parsons (6) and Sydney Sheets. GW: Brilee Redden and Julia Herndon. WP — Redden. LP — Shockey. Hitting — MT: Nevaeh Hall 2 RBIs, Sydney Sheets 3-3 (2b, 3 RBIs), Hannah Beeson (2b), Trinity Wilson 1-4, Madison Campbell 1-4 (HR, RBI), Layla Tompkins 2-4 (2b), Anna Weaver (2b), Jenna Stonestreet (2b, RBI). GW: Maddie Fields 2-2 (grand slam, 2b, 6 RBIs), Preslee Treadway 3-4 (3b, 2b, 2 RBIs), Desteney Walker (2b), Hannah Sweet (RBI), Brilee Redden 1-4 (2b, 2 RBIs).
