STEPHENVILLE – The Brownwood Lady Lions dropped their regular season finale and slipped into fourth place in the District 6-4A softball standings with a 4-1 loss at Stephenville Tuesday.
The Lady Lions (10-12, 4-4), whose second district bye falls Friday, trails Stephenville (11-13, 4-3) and Glen Rose (16-12, 4-3) – who are tied for second place – by a half-game. Stephenville and Glen Rose meet Friday and if Stephenville loses, the Lady Lions and Honeybees will finish tied for third place having split their district series. If Glen Rose loses, it will be the third seed and Brownwood the fourth seed for the playoffs as the Lady Lions were swept in the two district meetings.
In Tuesday’s contest, Stephenville struck for three runs in the bottom of the first inning and the Lady Lions were unable to recover.
Brownwood’s lone run scored in the top of the fourth inning as Jeniffer Romero reached on a two-out dropped third strike, and scored on an RBI double by Chloe Walls.
The Lady Lions finished with just three hits off Stephenville pitcher Presley Gaitan – one each by Romero, Walls and Tynlea Wilson. Brownwood also suffered 10 strikeouts and the Stephenville defense did not commit an error.
Stephenville took a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning as Gaitan helped her cause by launching a one-out solo home run, followed by a two-out RBI double from Koedee Self and an RBI single by Anahi Velaquez.
The Honeybees stretched their lead back to three runs, 4-1, in the bottom of the fourth with an RBI triple by Gaitan.
In the circle for Brownwood, Wilson yielded four earned runs on nine hits with four strikeouts and one walk. The Lady Lion defense committed two errors.
Also Tuesday, Graham (20-8, 5-2) defeated Glen Rose, 5-3, to grab sole possession of first place in the 6-4A standings. Mineral Wells (10-19, 1-6), which had a district bye Tuesday, is out of playoff contention.