If Ooltewah's softball team would've been the Lady Fish on Tuesday, it could be written that they wriggled off the hook. If they were the Lady Cats, they'd now be down to eight lives.
But instead, the cunning thing that can be written about the Lady Owls is that they're now perched alone atop the TSSAA District 5-AAA standings.
Ooltewah trailed by seven runs early against Walker Valley, and after coming back from that was down six midway through the district game at Ooltewah. But with senior right-hander Kayla Boseman leading the recovery project, the Lady Owls came back and defeated the Lady Mustangs 16-15 with the wind blowing straight out from home plate the entire time.
"We're kind of built to where if we need to score seven, eight, nine runs to win, we've still got the chance to do that," Ooltewah coach Jon Massey said. "Playing here, if you hit it hard and hit it well, you've got a chance. Balls get out of here even when the wind isn't blowing.
"But if you had said we had to score 16 to win, I don't know if I'd have believed it."
Ooltewah (13-2, 4-0) won in the bottom of the seventh inning on Marissa Forrester's sacrifice fly to right field. But the real drama came the inning before when the Lady Owls managed to load the bases with two outs for Boseman, who delivered a tying home run to center.
Walker Valley had intentionally walked the Ooltewah slugger in her previous two at-bats and escaped those innings without allowing a run. This time she was pitched to and the 1-0 delivery got near the plate, even though it may have been up and out of the strike zone.
"She's a great hitter," Walker Valley coach Lauren Limburg said. "You've just got to tip your hat to her. Any pitch, she can hit it."
The Lady Mustangs totaled 15 hits, including five home runs, off Ooltewah's first two pitchers. With veteran pitcher Mackenzie Patterson out until perhaps late April with a stress fracture in her foot, Massey turned to Boseman, who has been bothered with tendinitis in her left knee. But she came on with two out in the fourth and pitched perfectly the rest of the way with seven strikeouts.
Massey didn't like that the Lady Owls aided Walker Valley with five errors.
"That's about four or five way too many," Massey said. "A win is a win. We're not going to give it back. But we didn't play very good defense, so we've got to get that shored up in a hurry. We're fortunate to be on top."
Ooltewah's Sydney White went 3-for-5, including a one-out double to start the winning rally. She and Cheyenne Sales each had a two-run home run, White's coming in a seven-run second inning, and she ended up scoring three runs. Boseman finished 2-for-3 with five RBIs. Forrester went 2-for-4 and four other Lady Owls went 2-for-5.
Kaylee Hughes was 3-for-4 with a double, four RBIs and two runs scored for Walker Valley (6-4, 2-1). Hughes, Hannah Kate Singleton and Riley Suits hit consecutive home runs in a six-run fourth. It was Singleton's second home run. Michele Benson's grand slam highlighted an eight-run second and Laney Harris, who was 2-for-3, led the Lady Mustangs with three runs scored.
"I'm just proud of our girls for never giving up," Limburg said. "Yeah, it stings, it hurts. We just need to learn from this and improve. Obviously our goal is to do as well as we can in the district. We still can accomplish all our goals."
Contact Kelley Smiddie at ksmiddie@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6653. Follow him on Twitter @KelleySmiddie.