Valley Cubs win 5A area crown

Alexandria jumps to early lead, then holds on as Lincoln battles back

By Al Muskewitz
East Alabama Sports Today

LINCOLN — Alexandria softball coach Brian Hess rolled the dice of sorts Wednesday night asking a freshman pitcher who hadn’t gone seven innings before to win the area championship and in the end felt like he got away with one.

For five innings the move to start Leighton Sparks worked like a charm. It nearly came back to haunt him in the late innings and he had to bring on his ace, but in the end the Valley Cubs had enough offense in hand to beat Lincoln 9-7 for the 5A Area 12 crown.

Both teams will advance to the regionals in Tuscaloosa.

“I almost got away with it,” Hess said. “I was trying to just say if they come out and beat us straight up then I have Petey (Lauren O’Dell) fresh, but I looked over at my pitching coach and said if she gives up another hit we’re going with Petey. I don’t care how loose she is, we’re going to have to have her come in and finish it off. She came in and did what we needed her to do.”

Hess went and got his starter with one out in the seventh after Ashley Joyce’s two-run double drew Lincoln within 9-6, but for five innings Sparks was brilliant. She gave up no hits and didn’t allow a ball out of the infield.

But she began getting her ball up in the hitting zone in the sixth and the Golden Eagles hit it.

She is still coming back from the effects of stomach virus hat had her on the shelf for a week in March, but she believes she’s about over it now.

“Leighton pitched a great game, (but) started giving out around the sixth inning,” Hess said. “I felt when we added the three (in the sixth) with (Timberlynn Shubutt’s) home run I thought we’ll let her see if she can finish it. Once they started getting on her I said we’ve got to stop this because I don’t want to stay here all night.

“She’s never been in a situation where anything’s been on the line. To give a freshman a ball, it’s her first year here, and say go out and win the area for us, even though we had that one game cushion, that’s asking a lot for a kid whose never been in that situation. She threw exactly way we wanted her to throw.”

Sparks, who didn’t know she was starting until right before the game, was appreciative of the confidence the coaching staff showed in her by giving her such a plum assignment. She was disappointed she couldn’t go the distance.

The pressure of the situation lessened, of course, knowing the Cubs couldn’t be eliminated if they lost the game and they staked her to a 6-0 lead.

She allowed only four base runners through the first five innings and struck out three. But Victoria Sands broke up the no-hitter with a solid single to right leading off the sixth and the Golden Bears cut their deficit in half on a three-run homer by Victoria Mitchell.

The Cubs got all the runs back on the homer by Shurbutt in the bottom of the inning that proved to be the winning runs.

Lincoln made it even more interesting in the seventh. The Golden Bears put their first five runners on in the inning to chase Sparks in favor of Lauren O’Dell and wound up scoring four to make it 9-7.

Pinch-hitter Hannah Carmichael had an RBI double in the inning, Ashley Joyce ripped a two-run double and Mitchell knocked in another run with an infield out.

Victoria Sans and Joyce both had their two hits in the final two innings.

“They’ve never been in that situation, so I had to come over here and get on them and tell them quit being a bunch of babies and chickens,” Lincoln coach Rush Rutledge said. “I said what are you going to lose by going up there swinging?

“The key thing with mine is they’re so young the sixth, seventh inning they fought. What I’m more pleased with than anything is they didn’t quit on me and they didn’t quit on themselves. They just battled.”

Shurbutt went 3-for-4 with five RBIs and Jessica Shaw had two hits for the Valley Cubs. The first five hitters in the Cubs’ lineup reached base 13 times in 20 plate appearances.

Besides her big homer, Shurbutt also had a two-run single in a four-run third inning. She hit four homers in the tournament that drove in 14 runs.

“I’m just seeing the ball a lot better,” Shurbutt said. “I’ve been working really hard, going to hitting lessons at 9 o’clock at night in Birmingham, getting home at like 12 and then having to wake up to go to school, because I wanted to get better. I wasn’t hitting the ball like I thought I should be hitting the ball, so I started working harder.”

Alexandria 9, Lincoln 7

Lincoln 000 003 4 — 7 7 2
Alexandria 014 013 x — 9 10 1

REANNA POWELL, Savannah Sands (5) and Victoria Mitchell; LEIGHTON SPARKS, Lauren O’Dell (7) and Allison Bonds. 2B: Hannah Carmichael (L), Ashley Joyce 2 (L); Destiny Heathcock (A). HR: Victoria Mitchell (L), Timerblynn Shurbutt (A). WP: Leighton Soarks. LP: Reanna Powell.

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