TRION, Ga. - Two things Dana Mull's Gordon Lee High School softball teams always have stressed are making an opponent earn its runs and never stop applying pressure while at bat.
Those two staples were key in Thursday night's 8-0 win over Region 6A-A rival Trion, a game that was delayed an hour by inclement weather and began with four scoreless innings.
The Lady Trojans (10-0, 4-0) used aggressive baserunning to score two runs in the fifth and then broke it open with six in the sixth to back one-hit, six-strikeout pitching from Emma Langston (6-0).
"Emma pitched a great game," Coach Mull said. "They had one inning where they had the first two runners on, but she kept calm and threw her game, and the defense played well behind her."
Langston and Trion starter Whitney Shepherd matched zeros early, with each team stranding a pair of runners in one inning. The Lady Trojans' Kirbie Bradley and Macie Pearson led off the fifth with singles, and after an infield out that moved both runners up, Addison Sturdivant hit a hard grounder that scored Bradley on a close play at home.
Maddie Clark then drove home the game's second run with a ground ball that resulted in an error.
The bad inning carried over to the sixth for the Lady Bulldogs (8-2, 3-2). Emma Minghini led off with a single, with Langston then reaching on an error. The floodgates then opened, with Pearson, Anna Logan, Clark (a two-run single), Regan Thompson and Minghini adding run-scoring hits.
"In the sixth we all exploded, and the last two or three games we have started to mesh a bit," Mull said. "Once we go through the lineup one time we get on a roll. The bottom of the lineup, it seems lately, has started a lot of things for us."
Clark had three RBIs and Minghini and Pearson had two hits each for the Lady Trojans. Janie Emery had Trion's lone single in the fifth inning.
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6296. Follow him on Twitter @youngsports22.