The W.S. Neal Lady Eagle softball team used the no-hit pitching of Kaitlin Hadaway to get one game closer to a regular season area championship Tuesday as the Lady Eagles picked up a 4-0 area win over the Bayside Academy Lady Admirals.
Hadaway went the complete distance in the circle for the Lady Eagles and allowed no runs, no hits, no walks and struck out nine. Bayside had four batters reach base on three W.S. Neal errors and a fielder’s choice.
“Kaitlin just kept us in the game,” W.S. Neal Lady Eagle head coach Jeff Haney said. “She was unhittable. She had nine strikeouts and she threw as well as she has thrown all year. We had a couple of errors here and there, but the defense made some big plays behind her.”
While that was the good in Haney’s eyes, he said there was some bad. The bad he saw needs to be corrected as the bigger games are coming up for the Lady Eagles in the area tournament and possible playoffs.
“Our bats are still the story,” Haney said. “They are our Achilles heel, I guess. We had seven or eight hits, but I don’t think any of them went in the grass. They were all infield hits. We are not driving runs in. We are having to manufacture runs with bunts and small ball and getting luck on passed balls and things like that. We are not going to be able to beat real good teams like that. In the area tournament, or in crunch time, we are going to have to hit the ball if we plan on making the playoffs. We plan to do that, so we are going to have to hit the ball against good teams. We are working on it and we are going to keep working on it.”
After a scoreless first two innings for both teams, W.S. Neal got on the board with one run in the third inning. From there, the Lady Eagles added two in the fifth inning to take a 3-0 lead and added a fourth run in the sixth. From there, W.S. Neal held Bayside off the board in the seventh to get the win and improve to 11-9 overall and to 4-1 in area play.
Kena Ellison had two singles for W.S. Neal and Tori Wyatt, Kaeli Brown and Hadaway all had singles. Hadaway had one RBI. KeKe Floyd added two singles in the win.
W.S. Neal will play for a chance to be named the regular season area champions Thursday at home against T.R. Miller in their final area game of the season. Game time is set for 4 p.m. in East Brewton. A win would also give W.S. Neal the privilege of hosting the area tournament. A loss to the Lady Tigers would put both teams at 4-2 in area play and the regular season champion and host site for the area tournament would have to be figured out using the tiebreaking rules set forth by the AHSAA.
W.S. Neal’s lone area loss came at Bayside earlier in the year while T.R. Miller has a loss to W.S. Neal and to Cottage Hill.
W.S. Neal will play in the Escambia County Tournament Friday and Saturday at JDCC. The Lady Eagles won the first-ever tourney last year.