Business picked up for Winston Academy in softball action this past week as Charlie Smith’s team got six games in over the course of five days. Most of those games came in a busy weekend tournament at Bayou Academy, but Smith felt like his team made the most of it as they had a successful win/loss record along the way.
It started with WA demolishing district opponent Starkville Academy in five innings with an 11-0 victory. This game came on Tuesday after the Monday afternoon contest was washed out. The rainout just delayed the inevitable as the Lady Patriots proved to be the much better team in the win.
They followed that up with their biggest district test to date when they had to travel to East Rankin on Thursday. It was a game where errors became an issue and some calls didn’t go the Lady Patriots’ way as they fell behind 8-2 through four innings and couldn’t quite get make it all the way back in a 9-7 loss. Despite the defeat, it was a productive midweek.
“I guess we had a pretty good week. We took care of business against Starkville. We didn’t play really well against East Rankin,” Smith said. “We made a couple of errors and missed some plays. We scrapped, but it was one of those nights where we couldn’t get over the hump.”
The Bayou Academy tournament last weekend didn’t provide a full seven innings of clarity each game but it was a test for WA and one that they passed. They got to go up against a strong Magnolia Heights team right away and won a hard-fought 2-1 game in four innings despite not recording a hit.
Anna Grace Whitehead had 4 innings of one-run ball with five strikeouts in the victory.
In game two against Tri-County, WA won another 2-1 game but had seven hits in five innings as the time limit saw them get the win in the bottom of the fifth. Morgan Woods had three hits to lead the way and Mayson Smith had two hits.
The quarterfinals of the tournament saw WA gaining some steam as Woods and Smith had three and two hits again to lead the way in a 7-1 victory in five more innings. Smith had three RBI to lead the team to victory.
Winston’s day finally ended when they met Leake in the semifinals and played only two innings in what was a 9-0 ball game. Due to the teams not reaching four innings, the game didn’t go down as official and Smith said his team was spent by that point in the day.
“We pitched well and played really good defense on Saturday and got some timely hitting throughout the whole day. I was really pleased with that,” Smith said. “We were wore out when we went to the semifinal game (vs. Leake) and the wheels just kind of came off. But it was a good day. We beat two really good fast-pitch programs in the MAIS.”
The Leake matchup will count the next time around but it won’t be until next week that the Lady Pats and Lady Rebels get to meet. Monday afternoon’s game was postponed due to wet fields and won’t be played until next Wednesday.
If weather permits, WA (10-2) will get another district game in this week as they were slated to host Heritage Academy on Tuesday.
“Heritage throws strikes, they just don’t throw it fast and that makes it hard. They throw you off a little bit,” Smith said. “We pitched and played defense really well against them the first time at their place. At this point, we’re swinging the bats better than we have all year so that’s starting to pick up for us some.”
