The Brownwood Lady Lions were upended for a fourth consecutive time Wednesday night, dropping a 4-2 contest at home to the Alvarado Lady Indians in non-district action.
“Coming off our last tournament we had some struggles and today we actually saw some improvements in some areas where we struggled in our tournament last week,” said Lady Lions head coach Jessica Lynn. “So we told the girls even though the outcome’s not what we wanted, we saw some very good play, we saw a lot of good things we didn’t see in our tournament so we told them to build on that. We still have some things to work on, but overall we were good with some of the improvements we saw tonight.”
The Lady Lions yielded a single run in the third inning and three more in the fifth, while scoring once in the sixth and seventh frames.
Alvarado took a 1-0 lead in the third as Tenzly Martin and Reagan Elmore singled to start the frame, then Abby Tatum reached on a fielder’s choice and no one was retired which loaded the bases. Jacey Power followed with an RBI single down the right field line, but Brownwood pitcher Annie-Klein Allgood allowed no further damage.
The Lady Indians stretched the lead to 4-0 in the fifth as Elmore singled and Tatum reached base on an error ahead of a two-RBI triple to right-center field by Power. The next batter up, Baylee Marr, reached on another error that allowed Power to come home.
“They made us battle which is good,” Lynn said. “Friday’s going to be a tough game, so we needed a tough game tonight. We had one bad inning where we made two or three mistakes but other than that I thought we had a very good defensive game.”
Offensively, the Lady Lions tallied their first run in the bottom of the sixth as Allgood singled with one out and scored on Cecilia Rodriguez’s RBI triple to right-center field. Rodriguez was stranded at third, however.
In Brownwood’s last at-bat, Marian Soto led off with a walk, moved to second base on a Mackenzie Welch sacrifice, reached third base on a passed ball, and scored on Chloe Walls’ two-out RBI dribbler up the middle.
Jeniffer Romero led Brownwood’s five-hit attack with a pair.
“We got going a little late offensively, we have to get it going earlier and make some adjustments earlier in the game,” Lynn said. “We had some good at-bats, but we have to work on our pitch selection in some at-bats. We also don’t need to kill ourselves with base running mistakes. We had a couple that stopped some momentum, but those are things we can learn from and work on in practice.”
The Lady Lions (8-7) will host Abilene Cooper at 6:30 p.m. Friday in their final game before opening the District 6-4A slate at home against Glen Rose on March 22.
“The last two days of practice were high energy and good intensity and I thought it carried over into today, they just have to keep it up,” Lynn said. “This is all a warm up for district, that’s what counts, that’s what gets you into the playoffs. As long as we keep improving on everything Friday and into next week, we should be in a good place and heading in the right direction with making plays and being confident in what we’re doing.”
