Facing an undefeated Class 6A foe in their home opener Tuesday night, the Brownwood Lady Lions softball team came up on the short end of a 14-3, six-inning decision against the San Angelo Central Lady Cats.
“They put pressure on us from the first pitch,” said Lady Lions head coach Jessica Lynn, referring to a deep fly out to left field to start the contest. “We could feel that so it puts a lot of pressure on you. I felt like some innings we were OK and some innings we let it get to us. I never felt like we stopped fighting, they just took it to us, and they hit the ball hard. I knew it was going to be a tough one. There’s some areas we need to fix, we have some things we have to work on, but we were going to have to play our best game of the year so far and it didn’t work out that way.”
Central (6-0) scored in every inning but one, and piled up eight runs in its final two trips to the plate. The Lady Cats generated 16 hits and two walks off Brownwood pitcher Annie-Klein Allgood, who struck out two batters.
Taylor Martin led Central with four hits and four RBIs, Rylee Dehn added three hits and two RBIs, Emily Sanchez finished with two hits and a pair of RBIs, Ashton McMillan tacked on two hits, and Laynee Crooks drove in two with one hit.
The Lady Lions managed four hits off Central pitcher Allizaya Talamantes, but struck out 10 times.
Down 6-0 in the bottom of the fourth, after holding Central scoreless in the top half, the Lady Lions produced their first run. Allgood led off the frame with a single up the middle then, with one out, Auzzlyn Benedict launched an RBI triple to right-center field to close the gap to 6-1.
Brownwood added its final two runs in the bottom of the sixth, falling just short of extending the game to a full seven innings.
With one down, Allgood again reached base, this time doubling to left-center field. Chesney Covey immediately followed a two-strike, RBI triple into the left field corner. Covey was later able to score on a wild pitch, but the Lady Lions’ rally ended there.
“We did a great job of fighting, especially in that last inning,” Lynn said. “We could have gone into the last inning and just given up and felt like we had no chance, and we came out and scored two runs, got two extra-base hits, so we were fighting to the end and I told them I was really proud of that. A team that is willing to fight, even as far down as we were, that’s going to take you a long way.”
The Lady Lions (3-3-1) are back in action at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Breckenridge.
