Gordon Lee's Emily Armour hurls a ball towards home plate against Darlington in August.COLUMBUS, Ga. - Trying to win six games in two days finally proved too much for the Gordon Lee High School softball team.
The Lady Trojans, winners of four consecutive Class state titles, made it to the championship series of the Class AA tournament Saturday after losing their first game Thursday in the double-elimination event. However, Heard County, which had played only three games, ended the five-peat attempt with a 6-2 win.
Gordon Lee (34-8) earlier defeated Vidalia, 3-2, in the losers-bracket final after winning three games Friday, but the road back was demanding, especially on pitcher Emily Armour.
"Emily pitched her guts out and she had to be tired, but she never said a word," coach Dana Mull said of her junior ace. "If we play Heard Clunty fresh I think it's a different game, but that tells you how important it is to win those first two games. I can't complain about how hard the girls worked this weekend, and we gave ourselves a chance to win until the final inning."
Gordon Lee led 2-1 after four innings after scoring single runs in the third and fourth on a double by Reagan Brown and Bailey Miller's sacrifice fly. However, Heard's Cali Harrod tied the game with a home run in the fifth and the Braves scored the eventual game winner on a passed ball later in the inning before adding three runs in the seventh on two wind-blown hits.
The swirling winds, up to 25 mph at times, were not kind to the Lady Trojans.
"The wind is no excuse, obviously, but they had several balls knocked down by the win that fell for hits," Mull said. "There's nothing you can do about that. I thought we had put ourselves in a position to win, leading 2-1, but we couldn't finish it."
The Lady Trojans earlier used Armour's two-hitter to edge Vidalia, with Brown getting the big hit with a two-run double in the fifth.
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6296.