Richie Wood's biggest fear was close to being realized midway through Tuesday night's first-place softball showdown with Northwest Whitfield.
Wood's Ridgeland team just came off a sobering weekend at the Allatoona tournament, losing three of four games, and it appeared the Lady Panthers' poor play was hanging around as they trailed 3-0 heading into the bottom of the fourth inning. However, two runs in the inning and two in the fifth, coupled with solid pitching from Allison Wallin and Morgan Crawford, led Ridgeland to a 4-3 win.
The Lady Panthers are 8-4 overall, 5-1 in Region 6-AAAA.
"It was a growing experience," Wood said of the weekend's travails. "I told them, 'Steel sharpens steel, and we have to grow from this.' Maybe that's why we pulled through tonight and didn't get down when were trailing 3-0."
Northwest (9-3, 4-2) used Peyton Tuder's solo homer and two Ridgeland errors to score twice in the third, and then Kylee Ward's two-out single after another error made it 3-0. The Lady Panthers' rally started with Crawford's one-out single and Haley Walker's double. After a walk loaded the bases, Cortney Mooneyham's groundout plated one, and another scored on an errant relay throw.
A hit batter, a single and a sacrifice started the Ridgeland fifth, with Kiera Foster's sacrifice fly tying the game before Crawford delivered what would be the game-winner, a solid single to left.
"I was looking for a hit to score the run," Crawford said. "I wasn't trying to do too much - just put it play and get the run in. It was a good win. We battled back as a team and finally starting hitting the ball and pulled it together as a team."
Ridgeland starter Wallin sat down six of the final seven batters she faced before giving way to Crawford, who worked through a one-out error by getting a groundout and a strikeout to get the save.
Crawford, like her coach, said the weekend was a learning experience and should help the Lady Panthers going forward.
"We learned character this weekend," she said. "We just went down there thinking we had this, but it was a tough weekend. This win puts that behind us. We talked before the game and said this weekend was a lesson and now we can move forward as a team and play the game as we know how."
Haley Sandridge matched Crawford's two hits for the Lady Panthers, while Alyssa Ward had two of Northwest's five hits.
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6296; follow on Twitter @youngsports22.