Lady Wildcats clinch districts after long road trip

Excitement filled the dugout at the Pam Shoemake Complex in Porum for the Quapaw Lady Wildcats as Talan Richardson would get the walkoff single that allowed runners at second and third to score the runs to clinch the victory by run rule in the fifth inning. I can tell you first hand that Quapaw was an example of how playing a tough regular season schedule would prepare a team for postseason, Despite the losing record coming into district play this team looked very experienced and was ready to play, The Lady Wildcats started off with an 8-0 win over Foyil and would fall to Porum in the first game 8-2 before forcing a decisive game three with a 5-3 win in a game that would be a close defensive battle all throughout. Makenzie Lovell would have eight strikeouts in the circle and would only surrender three runs on six hits with zero walks through seven innings for the Lady Wildcats while on the other side of things Mesa Coluston would start out for the Lady Panthers in the circle going one for one-third innings, allowing one run on one hit, striking out one and walking one, Jailyn Smith threw four innings in relief throwing four and two-thirds innings out of the bullpen. Quapaw would have ten hits overall in this game, Josie Parker and Katie Wray would have multiple hits, Parker led the team with four hits in four at bats. Porum would have six hits overall, Mesa Coulston and Leia Johnson managed multiple hits and each collected two hits to lead the team.

The next day we would have game three on tap between these two teams in a winner take all matchup for the district title and the Lady Wildcats would get the bats going early with a 5-0 lead early on, Lovell would get the momentum going with an RBI single on a 1-2 count, Talan Richardson and Brooklynn Williams would also have an RBI single while Riley Williams would get an RBI double, Going into top of the second the Lady Panthers would get on the board behind home runs to left field by Jailyn Smith and Mercedes Martin to make it 5-2, Bottom of second the Lady Wildcats would answer back with four more runs to make it 9-2 and they would take advantage of a fielder’s choice and a couple errors to get runners in to score. Top of third inning and the Lady Panthers would answer with an RBI single from Zoe Davis to set up two runners to score, Both teams would be scoreless in the fourth inning as both sides made some great plays defensively. Bottom of fifth inning the Lady Wildcats would get the runs going again behind an fly ball from Annie Chuckluck and an error in left field would set up another run to be scored, Last bat for the Lady Wildcats would come down to a full count with Riley Williams at bat and bases loaded and she would get a line drive to center field setting up Josie Parker and Sky Bass to score the game winning runs to clinch the district 12-4 by run rule in the bottom of the fifth inning. Lovell would have herself another big game in the circle only surrendering four runs on six hits with seven strikeouts and one walk. Coluston would start out in the circle going one inning allowing five runs on five hits and zero walks, Smith, Johnson and Rilee Miller would each contribute in relief. Lady Wildcats collected nine hits on the day with Richardson, Lovell and Williams collecting multiple hits on the day

We played a really tough schedule, 3A, 4A and even 5A teams and we had them early on in the season and those prepared us for teams like Porum said Quapaw head coach Kaci Stand when asked about the tough strength of schedule in regular season.

I felt like we were still hyped from last night and I feel like all the girls were ready to play and we are such a great group that works well together said Quapaw pitcher Makenzie Lovell

Starting with summer ball we would travel two hours just to play these bigger schools, It really prepared us for this game said Lovell when asked about the long drive for districts.