Central’s Brooke Parrott pitches against Red Bank Wednesday, May 18, 2016 at Central.For Alexis Grampp and her fellow Central Lady Pounders, patience paid off in the dividend of a third straight Region 3-AA softball championship Wednesday night against a rival Red Bank team they have faced five times this season.
The final feet of the Lady Pounders’ journey to secure a host’s role in sectionals took flight aboard two moonshot home runs by Grampp, who picked up five RBIs while providing the power for Central’s 7-2 victory at home.
Central (27-11) will host Region 4-AA runner-up Livingston Academy at 5 p.m. today. Red Bank (16-14) will travel to 4-AA champ DeKalb County in sectionals, but with rain in Friday’s forecast and DeKalb holding graduation tonight, coaches of the teams planned to discuss scheduling options. Winners of sectional games advance to next week’s state tournament.
While Grampp amassed more than 600 feet of frequent-flyer miles while going 2-for-3 Wednesday, Central’s all-time leader in home runs credited the anxiousness in being overly aggressive while making an out in her first at-bat as a key moment in the game.
“I try my best to get runs, but I was anxious in that first at-bat and I got myself out,” said Grampp, an admitted free swinger at the plate who now has49 home runs in her career, including 16 this year.
“The next at-bat, I waited and got ahead 3-0 before I took a pitch that I thought was going to be a ball, but it was right down the middle and I took it. Then I waited and I got the first one. The next inning, we got together in the infield and said this is our game now.”
Cheyenne Slaughter opened the door for the Lady Pounders with their first hit of the game in the third. She scored on Samantha Scott’s two-out single, one of three consecutive hits that were punctuated by Grampp’s first homer.
“We needed to make some adjustments at the plate, and Cheyenne and Sam set the stage for Alexis,” Central coach LeeAnne Shurette said. “She was very disciplined with that at-bat. She knew what she was going up there to do. She was waiting on her pitch. And when she waits on it, that’s what she does.”
In her next at-bat, Grampp battled to foul off pitches with two strikes before launching a two-run homer just beyond the landing spot of her first blast on the hill behind the center-field fence.
The 7-0 lead was more than enough cushion for Central starter Brooke Parrott, who has tossed 12 shutouts this year, including five in the postseason. In fact, Red Bank has scored the four runs that Parrott has allowed so far this postseason.
Parrott, with eight strikeouts Wednesday, kept the Lady Lions off-stride most of the game and pitched out of a two-outs, two-on jam in the third before the Central offense ignited in the bottom of the inning.
The Lady Lions staged a comeback effort in the fifth when Dani Usher connected for an RBI double. Red Bank then loaded the bases and picked up a second run when Lydia Dillard was hit by a pitch, but Parrott slammed the door on the Lady Lions’ best threat of the night by inducing a groundout.
“We played them a good game, and I’m still positive,” Red Bank coach Mandi Munn said. “The score doesn’t look as close as the game was. We had runners in scoring position and we had hard balls hit right at them.
“We just couldn’t seem to find a hole, but that’s part of the game.”