The Escambia County High School Lady Blue Devil softball team captured the second annual Escambia County Tournament championship Saturday at JDCC in Brewton as they went a perfect 3-0.
T.R. Miller went 1-1 in tourney play with a loss to the Lady Blue Devils and a win over Flomaton. Flomaton finished 1-2 with their lone win coming over W.S. Neal. The Lady Eagles of East Brewton—last year’s inaugural tournament champions—went 0-2.
T.R. Miller and W.S. Neal mutually agreed to not play each other in the tournament finale. The Lady Tigers and Lady Eagles have both met twice already this season with W.S. Neal going 2-0 against T.R. Miller. The two teams, who will probably meet again in their area tournament at month’s end, cited the mutual agreement—made by both heads coaches in an effort to limit injuries going in to the area tournament— was a decision that “just made sense.”
For W.S. Neal, the Lady Eagles fell to 12-11 overall with their 0-2 day at the tournament. The Lady Eagles lost to Flomaton 3-1 and 3-2 to Escambia County.
“Against Flomaton, we didn’t play very well in this game at all,” W.S. Neal Lady Eagle head coach Jeff Haney said. “We got one run pretty early, but our defense just made to many mistakes and let them have three runs. The 70-minute “drop-dead” time limit hurt us I think. We had runners at second and third, with the heart of our order coming up when time expired. I’m not a big fan of the drop-dead time limit. All that being said, our lack of defense cost us the game.”
In game two, the time limit once again caught up with the Lady Eagles.
“We had a bad first inning,” Haney said. “They scored three runs and we never could catch them. We, again, had runners at second and third when time expired and only trailed by one. I thought that we played well in this game except for that first inning. Kaitlin (Hadaway) pitched well in both games. She only allowed four hits in two games and struck out 13, and when your pitcher does that, your team should win. I really feel that we would have won both games if there was no time limit in place, but that was not the case.”
T.R. Miller opened the tournament with a 3-0 loss to Escambia County before winning 3-0 over the Lady Hurricanes in their final game of the day. The 1-1 tournament record improved T.R. Miller to 11-9 overall.
“We played very average on Saturday,” Lady Tiger head coach Greg White said. “We didn’t do anything really bad and at the same time we didn’t do anything really good. We were just there and that’s not good. We’ve got to find another gear and step up our overall play.”
White said he felt going into the tournament that Escambia County was the team to beat. “They have solid pitching and defense and they swing the bats real well,” White said. “They played the best and most consistent of all the teams there on Saturday and that’s why they won. Congrats to them.”

WSN goes 0-2:
The Lady Eagles of East Brewton went 0-2 in tournament play Saturday losing to Escambia County and Flomaton.
Against Flomaton, Kena Ellison had the lone hit for the Lady Eagles. Hadaway was credited with the loss going four innings and allowed two hits, three runs, one earned, walked two and struck out seven.
Against Atmore, Ellison, Tori Wyatt, Erin Hartsel and Madison Winchester all had one hit each while KeKe Floyd had two.
Ellison and Winchester had one RBI each.
Hadaway went six innings and allowed two hits, three runs, one earned, walked two and struck out five.

TRM goes 1-1:
For the Lady Tigers, T.R. Miller lost to Atmore but defeated Flomaton.
Against Atmore, T.R. Miller had only two hits with Abbi Roberts and Jessica Allan having one hit each.
Laurel Billy took the loss in the circle going four innings and allowed three earned runs, walked two and struck out four.
Against Flomaton, Hamric and Moriah Brundidge had the only hits for the Lady Tigers in the win.
Brundidge earned the win going five innings and allowed two hits, no runs, walked two and struck out four.