Georgia couldn't make up the 16 games it trailed in the series going into the 14th Tennessee-Georgia High School All-Star Classic at Frost Stadium on Tuesday, but the Georgia girls showed they may not be as far behind in level of play as Tennessee's 21-7 series record indicates.
Georgia defeated the Tennessee All-Stars 6-0 in seven innings and 2-1 in five. The only other doubleheader sweep by Georgia came in 2007.
Georgia team coach Dana Mull, who was known by her maiden name, Reed, when she played on two TSSAA championship teams at East Ridge in the late 1990s, coached Gordon Lee to a 38-0 record and the GHSA Class A title last year. She's not convinced the series record is an accurate reflection of the way things currently are.
"Over the last several years there's been some really good softball played in Georgia," Mull said. "Georgia's at least equal where Tennessee is. There are quality teams throughout the state."
Only northwestern Georgia was represented in Tuesday's games against players from southeastern Tennessee, and no one shone more in the first game than Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe pitcher Monica Vickery. The Kennesaw State-bound right-hander threw the first six innings with four strikeouts and errorless defense behind her.
"I just wanted to throw strikes, not walk people and let the defense do what they're supposed to do," said Vickery, who was chosen Georgia's outstanding player.
Soddy-Daisy players Mariam Wood and Millie Putnam had the hits off Vickery. Putnam's was in the fifth, when Wood was hit by a pitch and Marion County's Heather Richards walked. All three reached after two were out, and Vickery induced a groundout to end the threat and protect a 5-0 lead.
"We started out the first couple of innings hitting some hard line drives, but they were just right to people," said Tennessee coach Kelli Smith, who guided her alma mater, Baylor, to the TSSAA Division I-AA championship in the spring. "I was thinking, 'If we keep this up we'll find some holes,' but it turned out we only had one good scoring opportunity. She kept us off balance. She did a nice job."
The only inning Georgia managed more than one hit was the third, when it parlayed four hits and a walk into four runs. The big hit was a two-run triple by Darlington's Anna Swafford, a Georgia signee.
"Just making adjustments helped," Mull said. "We kind of figured some things out. These kids, most of them are going to play in college. They know what they're doing."
Vickery's LFO teammate Shelby Robertson was chosen the Classic's most valuable player. Her four hits in two games tied a series record and she had an RBI, two runs scored and two stolen bases.
Soddy-Daisy's Alex Everett was 3-for-5 in the two games and was selected Tennessee's outstanding player.
Both coaches expressed regret that the games, which were rescheduled from a week ago because of rain, had to be postponed. The delay proved particularly costly to the Tennessee team, which had more players unable to attend the makeup date.
"It's been fun getting to meet some of the girls you've gone against and read about in the paper," said Smith, a first-year coach in the series whose defensive alignment looked different from inning to inning. "We only had 10 people able to make it this time, and we only have one true outfielder, Millie Putnam from Soddy-Daisy. I liked that the other kids were willing to do whatever they could to help the team."