MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - Ashley Rogers said she was nervous and excited when she woke up Tuesday morning, already thinking about Meigs County's opening-round game against Silverdale Baptist Academy in the TSSAA Class A state softball tournament.
"It was the biggest game of my career," she said.
With a little help from her teammates, particularly Olivia Johnson, the sophomore right-hander stifled one of the top offenses in the state, piling up 15 strikeouts as the Lady Tigers defeated the Lady Seahawks 3-1 on Starplex field 4.
Meigs County (37-3) will play Summertown (27-13) today in a winners-bracket semifinal at 5 p.m. EDT. Silverdale (37-4) will play Scotts Hill (28-16) in the losers bracket at 11 a.m. EDT.
"We've got to win and advance now," Silverdale coach Tim Couch said. "We can't worry about this game anymore."
The game was big for both teams. For Meigs County, big in more than one way.
For both, many thought the best teams in the eight-team field drew each other in the first round.
"All we heard was that we had a really bad draw," Meigs coach Jeff Davis said. "Well, we thought they had a pretty bad draw, too."
Additionally, the state-tournament appearance was the fourth for the Lady Tigers, who were 0-6 in their previous trips.
"Our first goal was just to win a game this year," Davis said. "We're happy now. Now we'll try to get a second one."
SBA batted first and took a 1-0 lead when leadoff batter Ali Birchfield, who had walked and moved to second on a groundout, scored on Lindsey Newell's two-out double down the left-field line.
The Lady Seahawks, who had scored 75 runs in their first six postseason games, had one more hit the rest of the way. Davis said her curveball got a lot of the third strikes, but the full-count changeup notched a few, too.
"We just tried not to stick to one pitch," Rogers said.
Asked how many pitches she has, she replied, "Six or seven. And I used everything I had."
The Lady Tigers' runs came in the fifth, which started with Kaley Meadows' single. At that point Couch pulled starting pitcher Emily Harkleroad and went to Shelby Duggard. Couch credited Meigs for making Harkleroad work (90-plus pitches in four innings) and said she got tired.
An error on a potential force play set up Madison Crabtree's tying sacrifice fly.
Johnson, who beat Christian Academy of Knoxville 3-0 with a bases-loaded triple and had a 10th-inning bunt single to beat Midway 1-0, lined a two-RBI single to center with two outs.
"I think that hit topped both of those others," Davis said.
Contact Kelley Smiddie at ksmiddie@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6653. Follow him at twitter.com/KelleySmiddie.