Lady Lions Cinderella season ends in state semis

LEXINGTON — Regardless of Saturday’s outcome in the KHSAA state softball semifinals, Lewis County was playing with house money.

First region tournament title, first state tournament appearance that were accompanied with two wins.

So when Daviess County came away with a 6-2 victory at John Cropp Stadium in Lexington, the Lady Lions had already accomplished things that had never been seen in Lewis County.

“When you have a special year like we did, I told them don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened,” Lady Lions coach Joe Hampton said.

A five-run third inning doomed them on Saturday, the defensive miscues that had been minimized in the postseason caught up to them in the frame, committing two errors and Jessie Daniels’ three-run homer off the scoreboard in left field magnified them.

Staring at a 6-0 deficit rather quickly, things looked bleak for the Lady Lions, only able to muster up two hits through five innings. A lot of outs came in the air, the Lady Lions having 11 balls caught in the air off the bat.

Lady Panthers pitcher Raylee Roby finally found some trouble in the sixth as the Lady Lions had one last push in them. Maddie Johnson started with a bloop double to right that was nearly caught by Lady Panthers second baseman Seana Leibfried. Kayla Sullivan followed with an RBI single, Sarah Paige Weddington collecting her second hit and adding an RBI to make it 6-2.

But two more outs to the outfield ended the threat. Just couldn’t find the ball to drop.

“I felt like we were hitting it, just hitting it right at them. It was a stronger wind today, didn’t affect the one No. 7 (Daniels) hit out for them, but gosh I thought we made decent contact and got stronger at the plate as the game went on. Maybe we just got to see the pitcher more as the game went on, but I was pretty pleased with it,” Hampton said.

Emily Cole battled in the circle for Lewis County, Daviess County making her work to the tune of 145 pitches on the day, Cole recovering after the five-run third to retire 14 of the final 17 batters she faced. Cole was at 105 pitches through four innings, Daviess often working the count deep, fouling off pitches and picking their spots to attack.

“We didn’t want to chase pitches. We just tried to be really disciplined and get pitches that we can barrel up. Make the pitchers pitch, increase their pitch counts. We had some quality at-bats today,” Daviess County coach Larry Biggs said.

The sophomore finished with a complete game six-hitter, allowing the six runs, four of them earned with three walks and 10 strikeouts. She’s no longer a hidden gem in the hollers of Vanceburg, she’s now known across the state, the sophomore selected to the All-Tournament team.

“I’m so happy for her to get to show it. She backs up all the hype and showed everyone what she was capable of,” Hampton said. “She backs up her stats. Sometimes stats get sent in, get inflated, I think you got to see her and realized they are not inflated stats and she backs up all the hype behind her.”

Kayla Sullivan also added All-Tournament team honors, slugging eight RBI in the tournament and coming up with multiple timely hits in the postseason for the Lady Lions.

“Kayla hits day after day after day, bucket after bucket of balls. Emily throws every single day, works out and works on her craft to perfection. They’ll get better every year,” Hampton said.

The promising part now goes to what lies ahead, while this season was a bit surprising to get where they’re at, it will now become the expectation as they lose just two seniors in Madison Liles and Natalie Stone to graduation.

“I figure we’ll have a hard time scheduling games next year. We’ll probably have to travel more, but I think the target will be there on us going into next year and that’s a good thing for these girls. That’s where they got to the program to this level and hopefully they step up to that challenge,” Hampton said. “It hasn’t been easy since game one of the district. It was no given getting out of the first round of district and here we are Saturday in Lexington.”

Everyone else returns and as the Lewis County fans stood for an ovation at the end of the contest, they very well could be in the same seats in the same situation the next couple of years.

The future is bright in Vanceburg.

LADY PANTHERS 6, LADY LIONS 2

DAVIESS COUNTY — 105-000-0 — 6-6-2

LEWIS COUNTY — 000-000-0 — 2-5-4

2B — (DC) Daniels, (LC) Johnson

HR — (DC) Daniels

RBI — (DC) Daniels 4 (LC) Sullivan, Weddington

R — (DC) Morris 2, A. Newman, H. Newman, Daniels, Simone (LC) Sullivan, Johnson

LOB — DC 5, LC 2

WP — Roby. LP — Cole.

Records: Daviess County 34-6, Lewis County 23-9