Red Bank went 4-0 over the weekend and won the Lady Wildcat March Madness high school softball tournament at Hixson, beating East Ridge 9-1 in Saturday night’s final.
Coming into the tournament, the only thing consistent about the Lady Lions’ play in their first six games of the season was that it was inconsistent.
“I looks like we’re starting to put it all together,” said Red Bank coach Mandi Munn, whose team improved to 7-3 for the year. “Everybody has to accept their role. I think we’re finally starting to figure out what we need to do to make it work.”
Bailey Lyness led off the bottom of the first inning by beating out a bunt. That triggered a four-run outburst that Ashlen Mitchell capped with a two-run double.
“Red Bank was very focused,” East Ridge coach Sandy Mauser said. “You could tell from the start. They were all about it and determined.”
That could be because the Lady Pioneers beat the Lady Lions 6-3 last week in the regular-season meeting that counts in the District 6-AA standings. Munn said she’s satisfied with having the tournament championship instead.
“It’s all practice until you get to the tournaments anyway,” Munn said, referring to postseason play. “We made some mistakes when we played them the last time, and we gave up some walks. Winning this tournament is going to help our confidence. That’s something our upperclassmen needed.”
Red Bank used the bunt effectively in the final. Lyness and Megan Smith each had two bunt hits and combined to score four runs. Savannah Smith squeezed in a run and also had a two-RBI double among her two hits.
Gretchen Von Peters scored two runs. She was hit by a pitch and also reached when her bases-loaded sacrifice fly in the fourth was misplayed into a two-base error that allowed two more runs to score.
Winning pitcher Abbie Murray, who walked one and struck out three in the six-inning game, had a four-pitch fourth inning.
“I don’t think we were that patient at the plate,” Mauser said. “Some of the players were. Others just weren’t patient. You’ve got to put it together to score runs.”
Shelby Hamill lined a one-out single to left-center in the fifth. She eventually scored the run for East Ridge (3-4) on Chelsea Pope’s two-out single up the middle.