Lewis County is the back-to-back 16th Region softball champion after defeating Raceland, 15-0 on Wednesday in West Liberty. (Evan Dennison, The Ledger Independent)
16TH REGION SOFTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
The Lady Lions celebrate after awarded the 16th Region championship trophy. (Evan Dennison, The Ledger Independent)
WEST LIBERTY – The target has been there all season in the 16th Region, but nobody was able to hit bullseye.
They took punches from all over the place, but the Lewis County softball team countered every time.
The Lady Lions are headed back to Lexington, leaving no doubt in doing so, repeating as 16th Region champs after disposing of Raceland in Wednesday’s 16th Region championship, 15-0 in four innings.
“It takes me all the way back to day one. This is exactly our goal from day one,” Lady Lions coach Chad Case said. “And they have worked so hard to get here and I’m so proud of our seniors and all these leaders on this team. They’ve done a great job.”
All season long the Lady Lions were the most dominant team in the region and finished off an undefeated season in region play at 18-0. The last team to accomplish that feat was East Carter in 2018.
Just as recently as a week ago and on Saturday, the Lady Lions were in some situations to where a repeat was on the brink.
They opened postseason with a narrow 3-1 victory over Russell in the 63rd District Tournament, later defeating Raceland 5-0 to three-peat in the 63rd.
Then Saturday came, a tough opening round 16th Region tournament game against Rowan County in which the Vikings took the Lady Lions to nine innings before a 6-5 Lewis victory.
“It’s really interesting because people are like, even my wife, ‘What’s going on? You guys were scoring all these runs and now you’re not,’” Case said. “But listen, when you go into a district tournament, you go into region tournament there’s a lot of pressure on these young kids, especially a team that everyone expects to win. Everyone expected us to do this, but this is a very tough region. This is a very tough district. So that’s a lot of pressure on the kids to come out and have to do that every night. But we got it done and it paid off in the end and here we are.”
They sealed the deal the last two days with victories over Boyd County 6-3 in a semifinal rematch from last season that went 12 innings, and continued their dominance over Raceland this season with their fourth win against the Lady Rams in 2022, outscoring them 36-0 in the four contests.
Wednesday marked their 31st victory, the most of any program in school history as they’ll now head to John Cropp Stadium looking to break even more barriers down after a Final Four appearance last season.
Cheyenne D’Souza is the one who got the Lady Lions going Wednesday. Her homerun in the bottom of the second drew first blood and it was nothing but confident bats from that point on.
“Coach Case really worked with me this year. He’s helped me be more confident. I was nervous that first at-bat. My first at-bat is always nervous,” D’Souza said.
D’Souza’s home run started an eight run second in which 13 batters were sent to the plate, Kayla Sullivan’s no doubt homerun over the left field fence making it 4-0, after a pair of bases loaded walks, D’Souza’s second RBI of the inning and Maddie Johnson adding another, Kiya Noble ripped a two-run single to make it 8-0.
D’Souza’s initial home run was probably going to be enough for Emily Cole, the junior having already kept Raceland from scoring in the first 19 innings she faced them this season. All in all in 23 innings against the Lady Rams this season, she didn’t allow a single run and struck out 49 batters. Facing a team a second time could be difficult, but four times in a seven-week span magnifies the task.
“It’s really hard to play a team four times in a season, it’s really hard to play a team twice. Playing them four times really helped us as a team get better,” Cole said. “I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else. I love playing the game and I love getting the ball. I love every opportunity I get to get out here.”
Cole is now four strikeouts shy of 1,000 and will have a chance on the big stage to hit the milestone. The Lady Lions head back to John Cropp Stadium with experience and a purpose.
“We’re coming in and we know we can be a championship team,” Cole said. “So we’re gonna go there and make a statement for ourselves like we did last year and try to get farther and farther every year.”
With Cole in the circle, a potent lineup that’s hit .346 this season and having already been in the big lights in Lexington, anything is possible for the Lady Lions team that faces the 10th Region champion on June 3 at 6 p.m.
With winning on Wednesday, it does give the Lady Lions some time off, an eight-day break before they’ll take the diamond. They’re one of the few regions to start and finish their region tournament a week early and will now get to sit back and wait and scout their first opponent, the 10th not getting their region tournament started until Saturday.
LADY LIONS 15, LADY RAMS 0 (4 INNINGS)
RACELAND – 000-0xx-x – 0-2-7
LEWIS CO. – 083-4xx-x – 15-11-0
2B – (LC) Weddington
HR – (LC) D’Souza, Sullivan
RBI – (LC) D’Souza 3, Case, Sullivan 2, Johnson, Noble 2, Weddington 3, Tackett 2
R – (LC) D’Souza 2, Johnson, Noble, Sullivan 3, Willis 4, Puente, Tackett, Weddington 2
WP — Cole. LP – Grubb.
Records: Raceland 15-19, Lewis County 31-5
