Hillsboro advances to sectional finals; wins against Jackson
Lead Summary
By
Stephen Forsha-sforsha@gmail.com
HILLSBORO — The Hillsboro Lady Indians advanced to the 2022 SE District Sectional Finals by defeating the visiting Jackson Ironladies by a 3-1 score Monday at Alice Cassner Field in Hillsboro.
The semifinal win saw the Lady Indians use stellar pitching, near-perfect defense, aggressive base running, clutch hits when needed and taking advantage of Jackson miscues to seal the win against their Frontier Athletic Conference foe.
This was the third time the two teams met this season, and it was the most competitive game of the three meetings as HHS won their first two games by a combined score of 28-3 with previous wins of 11-1 at Jackson and 17-2 vs. Jackson during conference play.
“Eowyn Brown came up big for us, and I’ll take my hat off to Jackson and give them all the credit in the world, they came in with a game plan for us at the plate and they executed it about 95 percent,” HHS head coach Gary Breeden said. “Luckily the other 5 percent allowed us to get three runs.
“The difference between today and the past games was they were really working us and just working us hard. Before it was more down the middle, and they worked us really well, made us work.”
Hillsboro — the undefeated FAC champions — trailed by a 1-0 score after the top of the fourth was completed when Jackson scored a run by beating the tag attempt at the plate off a wild pitch.
Hillsboro didn’t trail for long as they scored two runs in the bottom of the fourth inning, taking a 2-1 lead. Gracey Dearmon started the inning with a one-out single to centerfield, and she followed that by stealing second base. Dearmon went to third on a groundout by Kinsey Gilliland.
The first HHS run scored when Dearmon raced home on a triple by Brown, tying the score at 1-1. Brown scored on a two-out base hit to centerfield by KaleyJo Myers, taking the one-run lead.
Hillsboro’s final run scored in the bottom of the fifth inning when Halle Reveal reached third base on an outfield error and scored off a groundout by Kayla Roberts for the RBI and a 3-1 HHS lead.
Hillsboro totaled five hits in the win, with those hits credited to Cam Spruell, Dearmon, Brown, Myers and Isabelle Brunck. Brown, Myers and Roberts each had an RBI. Dearmon and Spruell each had a steal.
“Base running is something we’ve stressed all year,” Breeden said. “We want to make sure we are taking every advantage of 60 extra feet if possible, and it is games like tonight it proved pretty valuable. On defense minus one miscue, and we are going to have those from time-to-time, but we responded well from that miscue and played really solid defense behind Cam in the circle.”
Spruell was the winning pitcher, as she went the distance for the complete seven-inning win. She allowed one earned run on three hits and 16 strikeouts, including striking out the first nine batters she faced.
“Cam is a battler, and she’s never going to let down and she’s never going to give into a batter,” Breeden said. “Her performance allows us to utilize other pitchers we have in the next round. Having Cam doing what she’s doing right now keeps us really fresh in the circle, and if we have to we have a situation where I have three pitchers now that Gracey is back, and we have three arms (Roberts) where we can throw at people.”
There was also a moment in the bottom of the seventh where Jackson had the tying run at the plate, and Coach Breeden made a visit to the circle. From that point on, Spruell and the Lady Indians closed out the game and sealed the win.
“I honestly walked out and told here, ‘there is a rare Sasquatch sighting coming out of the dugout,’ and she kind of laughed,” Breeden said. “I told her all we need is outs and the runner on the base doesn’t matter, and all needed was two more outs and that calmed her down.
“Jackson is a good team, they really are. They battled hard in all three of our games — the previous two obviously we were able to put a lot of hits together, but tonight Jackson showed who they were and who they are going to be going forward. They have some really good potential, and it is going to be fun. Now we move on to Wednesday.”
Next for the Lady Indians is a sectional final game on Wednesday, May 11 at home against the Athens Bulldogs at 5 p.m.
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The semifinal win saw the Lady Indians use stellar pitching, near-perfect defense, aggressive base running, clutch hits when needed and taking advantage of Jackson miscues to seal the win against their Frontier Athletic Conference foe.
This was the third time the two teams met this season, and it was the most competitive game of the three meetings as HHS won their first two games by a combined score of 28-3 with previous wins of 11-1 at Jackson and 17-2 vs. Jackson during conference play.
“Eowyn Brown came up big for us, and I’ll take my hat off to Jackson and give them all the credit in the world, they came in with a game plan for us at the plate and they executed it about 95 percent,” HHS head coach Gary Breeden said. “Luckily the other 5 percent allowed us to get three runs.
“The difference between today and the past games was they were really working us and just working us hard. Before it was more down the middle, and they worked us really well, made us work.”
Hillsboro — the undefeated FAC champions — trailed by a 1-0 score after the top of the fourth was completed when Jackson scored a run by beating the tag attempt at the plate off a wild pitch.
Hillsboro didn’t trail for long as they scored two runs in the bottom of the fourth inning, taking a 2-1 lead. Gracey Dearmon started the inning with a one-out single to centerfield, and she followed that by stealing second base. Dearmon went to third on a groundout by Kinsey Gilliland.
The first HHS run scored when Dearmon raced home on a triple by Brown, tying the score at 1-1. Brown scored on a two-out base hit to centerfield by KaleyJo Myers, taking the one-run lead.
Hillsboro’s final run scored in the bottom of the fifth inning when Halle Reveal reached third base on an outfield error and scored off a groundout by Kayla Roberts for the RBI and a 3-1 HHS lead.
Hillsboro totaled five hits in the win, with those hits credited to Cam Spruell, Dearmon, Brown, Myers and Isabelle Brunck. Brown, Myers and Roberts each had an RBI. Dearmon and Spruell each had a steal.
“Base running is something we’ve stressed all year,” Breeden said. “We want to make sure we are taking every advantage of 60 extra feet if possible, and it is games like tonight it proved pretty valuable. On defense minus one miscue, and we are going to have those from time-to-time, but we responded well from that miscue and played really solid defense behind Cam in the circle.”
Spruell was the winning pitcher, as she went the distance for the complete seven-inning win. She allowed one earned run on three hits and 16 strikeouts, including striking out the first nine batters she faced.
“Cam is a battler, and she’s never going to let down and she’s never going to give into a batter,” Breeden said. “Her performance allows us to utilize other pitchers we have in the next round. Having Cam doing what she’s doing right now keeps us really fresh in the circle, and if we have to we have a situation where I have three pitchers now that Gracey is back, and we have three arms (Roberts) where we can throw at people.”
There was also a moment in the bottom of the seventh where Jackson had the tying run at the plate, and Coach Breeden made a visit to the circle. From that point on, Spruell and the Lady Indians closed out the game and sealed the win.
“I honestly walked out and told here, ‘there is a rare Sasquatch sighting coming out of the dugout,’ and she kind of laughed,” Breeden said. “I told her all we need is outs and the runner on the base doesn’t matter, and all needed was two more outs and that calmed her down.
“Jackson is a good team, they really are. They battled hard in all three of our games — the previous two obviously we were able to put a lot of hits together, but tonight Jackson showed who they were and who they are going to be going forward. They have some really good potential, and it is going to be fun. Now we move on to Wednesday.”
Next for the Lady Indians is a sectional final game on Wednesday, May 11 at home against the Athens Bulldogs at 5 p.m.
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