STONEY CREEK – North Greene laid the wood to Cloudland on Monday night and earned a spot in Thursday’s District 1-1A Championship with an 11-0 shutout victory over the Lady Highlanders in five innings.
“It felt really good. I thought the girls played well. I thought we played good defense. I thought we had a really good first inning and put the pressure on them and got some runs on the board early,” North Greene Head Coach Avery Weems explained.
After putting up 12 runs on Saturday against University High North Greene kept scoring at will with another double-digit run total. Normally when 11 runs are scored one expects to see a lot of hits in the box score. That was not the case on Monday. The Lady Huskies only had three hits, but worked with eight walks and two Cloudland errors to score.
“We really didn’t have a whole lot of hits. Just some good at bats, drew some walks, and then got the timely hits,” Weems mentioned.
The win helped avenge last week’s large 18-7 loss to Cloudland as recent as seven days ago. North Greene came ready to play from the beginning and scored five runs in the first to gain control quickly. The Lady Huskies scored in every half inning and never cooled off. The win helped secure a spot in the District 1-1A final on Thursday against the winner of Tuesday’s matchup between Cloudland and Unaka. It also punches North Greene’s ticket to next week’s Region 1-1A Tournament.
Pitcher Hannah Brooks was back in the circle on Monday and was dominant. Brooks pitched five innings only allowing three hits and struck out eight.
“She was excellent. That’s a really good team we just beat and they hit the wiz out of it. They’ve been really dominant at the plate recently. They’ve had some really impressive run outputs the past week or two,” Coach Weems stated. He continued by saying, “She did a good job at hitting her spots and she just looked really sharp and I thought we played really good defense behind her.
Matti Phillips was big in Saturday’s win with a three-run home run and repeated that same success with another three-run bomb in the 4th inning of Monday’s win. Phillips went 2-for-3 with four RBIs, two runs and a stolen base.
“Matti has been really big for us the past couple of games and I’m really proud of her because she probably hasn’t had the year she’s hoped for up to this point, but she’s really worked hard for us throughout the season trying to figure stuff out. It’s really paying off for her now. I’m super proud of her and I’m glad she’s got it going for us,” Coach Weems bragged.
Charlie Turnmire had North Greene’s other hit and went 1-for-2 with two RBIs and a walk. Although she finished 0-for-2, Hannah Brooks delivered three RBIs. Addi Dean’s quickness led to a team-high two stolen bags.
North Greene reached the 20-win mark in back-to-back seasons and improved to 20-9-1 with the win.
The bottom half of the first began with a strikeout, but North Greene managed to bat around the whole lineup while playing with one out. Eva Leonard reached on an error after a dropped fly ball. Tralyn Southerland hit into a fielder’s choice, but Leonard was safe at second. Josie Graham walked to load the bases.
Charlie Turnmire singled and drove home a pair of runs with Leonard and Southerland scoring to make it 2-0. Hannah Brooks grounded out, but scored Graham in the process to up the score to 3-0. Matti Phillips singled to right field and scored courtesy runner Kylee Listek and bumped the lead up to 4-0. Addi Dean reached on another error and Phillips scored next. The Lady Huskies led 5-0 after a strong first inning.
Eva Leonard and Josie Graham both walked in the second inning and scored the next two runs. Hannah Brooks grounded into a fielder’s choice and both runners scored from second and third to make it 7-0.
Another walk led to another run in the third. Addi Dean walked, then stole second, advanced to third on a sac bunt, and scored on a dropped third strike. Cloudland had to secure the out at first and Dean saw the opportunity to score on the throw and did exactly that.
“It felt good to add on. Once you jump out to a lead you do want to keep adding on and just make sure we get that insurance each inning and I thought we did a good job of that,” Coach Weems expressed.
And just like before, two more walks led to more runs. Tralyn Southerland and Hannah Brooks walked and set up Matti Phillips with the chance to smack another 3-run home run. The shot cleared the fence in left center by a good margin and helped North Greene grab an 11-0 lead after four.
Hannah Brooks finished the job and collected the final three outs and helped North Greene seal an 11-0 win over Cloudland.
North Greene will play the winner of Cloudland/Unaka in Thursday’s District 1-1A Championship at 5:00.
“We’re looking forward to it. We’re excited to get the opportunity to play in it and we just talked about how tonight was big, but Thursday is what we play for so we’ve got to come back ready to play on Thursday,” Coach Weems ended with.
