Rhea County was partly responsible for Ooltewah being in the Silver Division of the 26th Soddy-Daisy Lady Trojan Invitational high school softball tournament. But the Lady Eagles couldn't prevent the Lady Owls from winning it.
Ooltewah gained a measure of payback Saturday for Friday's tournament-opening loss by defeating the Lady Eagles 12-6 in the Silver final at Warner Park.
The tournament, which for years was played at Soddy Lake Kids' Park, normally has had at least one team from the Chattanooga area in the Gold final, but that was not the case this year. Siegel, from Murfreesboro, beat Montini Catholic, from Lombard, Ill., 3-1 in five innings for the 2016 Gold championship.
Friday's action was all pool-play games. Teams were then placed in the Gold or Silver bracket for single-elimination based on pool-play records.
"We played Rhea County early and just didn't play well," Ooltewah coach Jon Massey said of a 7-1 loss. "Then we came back and beat Harden Valley, played really well, and I felt good. Then it was win and stay in the Gold or lose and drop down in the Silver."
The Lady Owls' last pool-play game was a 4-3 loss to Montini Catholic. Massey went with his ace, Mississippi State commitment Kayla Boseman, in the circle that game.
"We played really well, even though we lost against Montini," Massey said. "I thought Kayla pitched well. They just kind of hit it a little bit better than we did."
Ooltewah (12-3) then rolled through the Silver bracket, finishing with 16 hits in the final. Rhea County coach Leah Price started workhorse Abby Wall but ended up using three pitchers.
"As the day progressed we started hitting the ball better. I'm sure she was tired," Massey said of Wall, "but we took advantage of it."
Ooltewah's Nos. 3 and 4 batters, Boseman and Aubbie Collake, combined to go 7-for-10 against the Lady Eagles with nine RBIs and five runs scored. Boseman homered in the first inning and Collake hit one out in the fifth.
Mabry Carpenter was 3-for-4 and Marissa Forrester was 3-for-5 with a double for the Lady Owls. Shelby Sutton was 2-for-4, drove in a run and scored two.
Six of the Lady Eagles' seven hits off winning pitcher Mackenzie Patterson came in the third and fourth, both three-run innings. Patterson had five strikeouts and walked three.
Kelsey Sherrill was 3-for-3 for Rhea County (5-6) with a double, two RBIs and a run scored. Delaney Smith was 2-for-4 with an RBI and two runs scored.
"We had a little heart-to-heart with them this morning," Price said of a meeting with her players before Saturday's play began. "We came out and hit the ball well and played together. The defense was solid all day long. Our pitcher just ran out of gas."
- Siegel 3, Montini Catholic 1: The teams in the Gold final chose to play with a time limit, which is what limited the game to five innings. Winning pitcher Veronica Westfall, a Middle Tennessee State signee, gave up a run in the final inning of her four-hitter that included three strikeouts and two walks.
The Stars took the lead in the third on Jensen McElroy's one-out single after Presley Leebrick had singled and Westfall walked ahead of her. McElroy ended up 2-for-3.
Cede Loftis, who has signed with Chattanooga State, provided the other runs for Siegel (16-2) on a home run in the fourth after KaraLynne Levi had walked.
Siegel coach Perry Lyons said he liked how his team was able to build camaraderie on the out-of-town trip and go 6-0 over the two days.
"This tournament had teams like Baylor, Soddy-Daisy and Ooltewah," Lyons said. "That's why we come down here. You get to play great competition down here. I love it. This is a tournament we want to come to every year if we can."
Contact Kelley Smiddie at sports@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/KelleySmiddie.