Lady Mustangs end LHS playoff hopes with 2-1 win
By JEREMY HEATH Staff Writer

PHOTOS BY GABE WOLF LHS freshman pitcher Taylor Holloman was brilliant in relief Friday night, but the Lady Badgers were knocked from playoff contention with a 2-1 loss to Marble Falls.

If Marble Falls and Lampasas played 10 more times this year in softball, the evenly matched teams would probably produce 10 more one-run games.

Unfortunately for the LHS faithful, Friday night marked the second time in two games against the Lady Mustangs the Lady Badgers found themselves on the wrong end of one of those one-run games.

Behind two first-inning runs and a strong pitching performance from Taylor Hoffmans, Marble Falls held off a late rally to secure a 2-1 win at Lady Badger Field Friday night. The Lady Mustangs beat the Lady Badgers 4-3 on March 11 at Marble Falls.

The loss knocks LHS (3-7 in District 25-4A) out of the playoff race and keeps Marble Falls (6-4) alive in the hunt for that No. 3 berth.

"The thing about this game (softball) that frustrates me the most is that a team can lose a game as easily as it can win it," LHS head coach Chris Gaffney said. "One mistake can carry more weight than it should."

Holloman pitched 5.1 scoreless innings of relief in the loss.

After freshman pitcher Taylor Holloman entered the game in the top of the second down 2-0 and held Marble Falls scoreless the rest of the way, the Lady Badgers entered the bottom of the seventh still down 2-0.

Stacey Dickens led off the inning with an opposite field-triple to right. Shelby Wilson plated Dickens with a ground ball to third to make it 2-1, and she ended up on second base with no outs after an errant throw to first.

After a strikeout, Wilson became out No. 2 after Kallen Vann hit a ground ball to short, and Wilson was thrown out trying to advance to third. A Marisa Bogart single moved Vann into scoring position, but Kirby Crow flied out to center to end the game.

The Lady Badgers finished with seven hits off Hoffmans, but the only multi-hit innings they produced were the first (two singles) and the seventh.

"We just couldn't string enough hits together," Gaffney said.

Holloman relieved starter Kirby Crow in the second inning, and pitched 5.1 scoreless innings, allowing just two hits. Holloman threw strikes and kept her defense busy, inducing 13 ground-ball outs, two strikeouts and one fly-ball out.

Her defense was up the challenge. Wilson, who moved from right field to first base after the pitching change, stretched to save a high throw from third baseman Vonzella Underwood in the second, completed a 5-3-6 double play with a strong throw in the fourth and managed to keep a foot on the bag and somehow grab a ground ball that was bobbled by second baseman Taryn Brown to record an out in the sixth.

Also in the sixth, catcher Bogart gunned down Lady Mustang Courtney Middlebrook, who crept too far off first base.

Crow, who moved to right field when Holloman relieved her, singled twice and was the only Lady Badger with multiple hits in the game.

The Lady Badgers are scheduled to play at Burnet today at 7 p.m. They beat the Lady Bulldogs, 10-1, at Lady Badger Field on March 14.