The see-saw experience for the Brownwood Lady Lions through the first half of District 6-4A softball action continued Thursday night, as head coach Cherita Munguia’s squad held on for a 5-3 victory over the Stephenville Honeybees to level their league mark.
“I told the girls over and over, we win as a team and we lose as a team and it’s going to take every single person from the head coach to the manager, the top hitter to the kids not seeing a lot of playing time,” Munguia said. “It’s going to take all of us and that’s what you saw tonight. Girls struggled tonight who hadn’t been struggling and girls stepped up who hadn’t stepped up yet. The energy was insane and we knew this was going to be a dogfight just because it was Stephenville. They one-upped me because I told them to fight to the end and they came out and struck first.”
The Lady Lions are off for eight days as they have their district bye Tuesday. At the midway point of the league schedule for Brownwood, the Lady Lions (8-10, 2-2) find themselves in third place behind Graham (17-7, 2-1) and Glen Rose (14-10, 2-1) – who they both lost to on the road – and ahead of Mineral Wells (10-14, 2-1) and Stephenville (8-10, 1-2) – who they both defeated at home.
“This game was crucial,” Munguia said. “We’ve shown that we can beat good teams and we’ve shown we can take care of business early. I think we’re going to see a different Lady Lion group against Glen Rose. There was still uncertainty in our program going into the first Glen Rose game and I think tonight will help us feel more confident in the second half.”
Glen Rose will invade Brownwood at 6:30 p.m. Friday, April 5 to start the second half of district competition.
Against Stephenville Thursday, however, a momentum-shifting defensive play in the top of the fifth inning set the table for offensive heroics to follow in the next two frames.
Clinging to a 2-1 lead, the Lady Lions witnessed Kodee Self reach on a lead-off single up the middle and Meg McGregor beat out a grounder to shortstop to put two runners out with no outs. Presley Gaitan then lined out to Jessica Romero and the two base runners attempted to advance. Self outran the throw from Romero to Carlee Burks at third base, then McGregor beat the throw from Burks to Lila Mares at second base. Self then broke for home attempting to knot the score but Mares fired to Chloe Walls at the plate who applied the tag in time for a double play. Macy Parker followed with a fly out to left field, and the threat was averted.
Brownwood came back in the bottom of the fifth and pushed the lead to 3-1 as Walls reached on a one-out single to left field, and Tynlea Wilson got on base via an error. With two outs, Peyton Pena was able to single home Walls for a two-run cushion.
The Lady Lions then doubled their advantage in the sixth as, after the first two batters were retired, Burks walked, Romero reached on an infield single and Walls drew a free pass to load the bases. Wilson then delivered a two-RBI single up the middle to increase the lead to 5-1, and those two insurance runs proved invaluable.
“We’ve left a lot of runners on this season, we still left runners on today, but I told them they have to learn to break away from teams,” Munguia said. “We don’t have to have a grand slam; they happen, but it doesn’t have to be an intentional thing. We have to learn to poke the ball or take a walk. Whenever we’re in the batter’s box we have to think about those ahead of you and behind you.”
In the top of the seventh, Fallan Everett and Self reached on consecutive one-out singles for Stephenville, then McGregor drew a walk to load the bases. Gaitan reached on an RBI fielder’s choice as she grounded to Mata, who tossed to Burks to retire the runner at third base. Down 5-2, the Honeybees stayed alive when Parker reached on an error at first base, then Matti-Lynn Dunnam drew a walk to load the bases with two outs.
But as Gaitan did earlier in the inning, Reese Haggard grounded to Mata at shortstop, who made the short toss to Burks at third to end the contest.
“Stephenville has had some games where they just stay in it and just pop back in and you have to commend them on it,” Munguia said. “They find a way and we knew that going on. When you pull ahead early in a game sometimes it’s easy to lose focus, but that Lady Lions didn’t lose focus at all.”
Wilson ended up yielding three runs on nine hits with five strikeouts, two walks and eight base runners left stranded.
“Her hitting helps her pitching and vice versa,” Munguia said of Wilson. “In the circle tonight she was confident and you could tell she was having a good time and not stressed.”
The Lady Lions struck early with solo runs in both the first and second innings. With two outs in the first, Walls reached on the first of three consecutive singles as Wilson and Jakayla Peek followed – with Peek plating Walls.
In the second inning, Mata reached following a dropped third strike and later scored from third base on a wild pitch that turned out to be ball four to Romero on a two-out walk.
Stephenville cut the deficit to 2-1 in the third as Self led off with a single and came home on a two-out RBI base hit by Parker.
