The Long County Lady Blue Tide softball team took on the Liberty County Lady Panthers on Thursday, Aug 23 and walked away with a key victory in Region 2-AAA. The Tide blanked the Panthers 14-0 in four innings.
The Panthers came into the game having scored 32 runs in their last three games while the Tide were looking to get back on track after dropping their region opener in a 4-3 loss to Pierce County on Wednesday.
The Lady Tide came out swinging in the bottom half of the the first after pitcher Trista Murphy sat down two Panthers on strikeouts in the top half. Sophomore Madison Giron slapped a leadoff double down the third base line with freshman Samantha Pitts bringing her home on a double RBI that bounced off the centerfield fence.
Pitts found herself home on a wild pitch while sophomore Ajmanni Jefferson brought Murphy home on a sacrifice RBI to give her team a 3-0 lead at the end of the first inning.
The Lady Panthers saw their bats get going as Moe Jenkins smacked a double into the outfield, but Murphy stepped up again and fanned the next two batters to give herself four strikeouts on the day.
The third inning was all Long County as they sat down three straight batters in the top of the inning and blasted the Panthers in the bottom half, scoring 11 runs to get to the eventual 14-0 final.
Senior Bailey Harrison led off the inning with a double and advanced to third on a Murphy single. Junior Madison Burkhalter brought them both home with a double into the outfield that bounced past the centerfielder. Fellow junior Chante Thomas brought home Burkhalter with a single RBI of her own, making the score 6-0 with one out on the board.
The Tide went on a one-out, six-run rally that included Giron clearing the bases on an RBI triple and Harrison, on her second at bat of the inning, crushing a three-run homer, her second of the year, to push the score to 12-0. Thomas capped off the impressive inning with a two-RBI single.
Long County rolled through the top of the fourth inning, which included Giron making a beautiful diving grab at shortstop to close out the game.
The Tide moved to 5-5 and 1-1 in the region while the Lady Panthers fell to 4-3 and 0-1 in the region. Long County will next host Brantley County on Tuesday, Aug 28 while Liberty County travels to Tattnall County on the same day.