MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — As good as the result was for Soddy-Daisy’s softball team in Wednesday’s Class AAA winners-bracket semifinal at Starplex No. 1, the news couldn’t have been much worse for the Lady Trojans shortly afterward.
Sophomore right-hander Kelsey Nunley had just pitched Soddy-Daisy past Beech 6-2 in a matchup of nationally-ranked high school teams when she fell coming out of the dugout and was accidentally stepped on with a metal spike on her pitching hand.
Soddy-Daisy (50-2), nationally No. 7 in the ESPN Rise FAB 50 poll that was released Wednesday, advances to play last year’s champion Riverdale today at approximately 8 p.m. EDT in the winners-bracket final. The Lady Warriors (56-6-1) are rated No. 24 and Beech (45-5-1) is No. 20 in the same poll.
Nunley held the Lady Buccaneers to six hits and a walk and totaled six strikeouts. Earlier in the day when the Lady Trojans beat Daniel Boone 9-3, she pitched 3 1/3 innings of relief and gave up no runs, hits or walks while striking out four.
Soddy-Daisy coach Clifford Kirk didn’t see the accident happen, but he did see the outcome from it.
“She got two fingers cleated,” Kirk said. “She’s got big gashes in them on her right hand. She’s not going to be able to pitch, not from what I looked at. We had it going our way, too.”
Alex Everett drove a pitch over the fence in left-center in the first inning that gave the Lady Trojans an early lead. Two were aboard when Kali Henderson hit a shot out of the park in dead center in the third.
That was plenty of support for Nunley.
“I thought we played well,” Kirk said. “We hit the ball and played defense, although we made a couple of mistakes. Overall I thought we played well.”
Henderson provided the offensive spark in the earlier victory by going 4-for-4 with a double and five RBIs.