MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - Meigs County had a consistent record to show for all of its previous trips to the TSSAA softball state tournament. Not one win on the ledger.
In 2016, the Lady Tigers earned their fifth trip to the tournament but this time produced a different result - a way different result.
Behind some powerful hitting, the strong right arm of pitcher Ashley Rogers and a play that may simply be known forever as "The Catch" in the program's lore, Meigs County earned the Class A championship Friday at Starplex No. 4.
Bouncing back from a 6-0 loss to Silverdale Baptist Academy in the first game of the double-elimination tournament final, the Lady Tigers defeated the Lady Seahawks 8-5 in the deciding game.
"It's wonderful," said Meigs coach Jeff Davis, who took over the program 13 years ago. "I've been in it a long time. We're usually home on Wednesday night. I kind of like the feeling. I'd like to try it again next year."
SBA was down by four entering the fourth inning of the final game. The Lady Seahawks then rallied for three runs and had two runners on when Elise Pearson, who had hit a grand slam when Silverdale won the first game of the final, came to the plate. Pearson launched a high drive over the head of left fielder Lindsey Ward.
"I was thinking I was burned," Ward said. "Everybody just kept saying, 'Back, back, back,' so I just turned and ran."
Ward raced back to the temporary fence constructed around the field and, reaching above it and falling over it, robbed Pearson of what would've been a go-ahead home run. Meigs (40-4) came in and got two runs and Silverdale didn't score the rest of the game.
"I saw her going back and said, 'Is she going to catch that?'" Rogers said. "Oh my goodness."
Davis noted Ward had a muff of a fly ball in the first game of the final. It was the only error the Lady Tigers had in that game but it was the gateway to all of Silverdale's runs - all in the fifth inning and all unearned.
"She made up for it in a big way," he said.
Rogers was the losing pitcher in the first game of the final, her third loss all season. After the Lady Seahawks got two hits off her Tuesday, they managed 19 against her in 12 innings Friday.
"I thought we had a good game plan going into both games," SBA coach Tim Couch said. "But we didn't have enough hits at the right times."
Rogers, a sophomore who has committed to Tennessee, acknowledged that Silverdale has "probably the toughest lineup I've faced all season."
"They were really disciplined today," said Rogers, who totaled 62 strikeouts in Meigs' five tournament games. "They really made me work for it."
Said Davis: "That's the toughest team we've played in our classification. I don't know, they may be the toughest we played regardless of classification, especially offensively."
In addition to her catch, Ward also contributed a two-run homer in the victory, as did Rogers. Madison Crabtree was 3-for-3 with a solo shot and two run-scoring singles.
Silverdale (42-5) played three games on the day, beating Marion County 2-1 in the losers-bracket final in the morning. Taylor Moran, who was 6-for-10 with three doubles in the three games, was the winning pitcher in the first game of the final with a four-hitter. She tried to continue her mastery of the Lady Tigers but ended up being replaced by Shelby Duggard, the winning pitcher against the Lady Warriors, in the third inning.
"There was a couple of things I wish could change," Couch said. "Maybe I wouldn't have left Taylor in as long as I did. She wanted it and we gave it to her. She fought and fought and fought."
Silverdale's Lindsey Newell was 3-for-4 with a double and two RBIs in the final game, and she had the tiebreaking sacrifice fly in the fifth against Marion County.
"We played as long as we could," said Couch, his team having losing its first game of the tournament. "A lot of hard work went into that. That team deserved to win. They've got a good ballteam."
Contact Kelley Smiddie at ksmiddie@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6653. Follow him on Twitter @KelleySmiddie.