Two of the cardinal sins of softball—errors and walks—plus the super pitching of Lady Cat Madison Davis led to the Logan County Lady Cougars to a 10-4 loss to homestanding Franklin-Simpson in the championship game of the 13th District Tournament Tuesday.
Coach Mark Wood’s team had beaten F-S both home and away during the regular season.
But the Lady Cougar pitchers issued nine walks to Franklin batters, seven of them in the last three innings. Three of the errors also occurred during those three innings. So, it should be no surprise that all 10 of the Franklin runs scored in the same time frame.
Only two of those 10 runs were earned.
Logan started strong. With two outs in the first inning, Sydney Lee singled. Davis threw strikes on the first two pitches to Logan cleanup hitter Kennedy Nichols, but Nichols returned the third pitch she saw the other direction for a two-run home run.
Abby Canler singled and Paige Vanzant reached on an error, but they were stranded.
The Lady Cougars went up 3-0 in the second inning when Pressley Harris reached on an error, moved up on KJ Page’s single, and scored on Brea Croslin’s sacrifice fly. Coach Todd Caudill’s Lady Cats made no more errors.
That was the last run the top-seeded Lady Cougars would score until two outs in the seventh when Nichols smashed another 0-2 pitch over the fence.
Logan threatened to score in two more innings. In the fifth, Croslin doubled and Nichols was hit by a pitch, but they were left on base. In the sixth, Rosie Kerchenski and Harris each singled with two outs, but they were left on base.
Davis, who has been Franklin’s top pitcher since middle school, gave up eight hits but didn’t walk a single Lady Cougar.
Logan pitchers Lee and Shelby Gettings gave up seven hits and eight walks.
Franklin’s Carolina Weems was the only Lady Cougar with two hits, and she got the only extra base hit with a double, Davis and Gracie Arnamann joined her in scoring two runs each.
The Lady Cats improved their season record to 16-22. The Lady Cougars’ record fell 17-10.
Pairings for next week’s regional tournament will be determined Saturday. Generally all four first round games are played at WKU on Memorial Day.