Hiwassee Dam – The Lady Eagles knew what was at stake last week.
Hiwassee Dam trailed Robbinsville by one game in the Smoky Mountain Conference standings, and the Lady Eagles’ last two games of the regular season were against the Lady Knights. Win both, and Hiwassee Dam would shoot past Robbinsville into first place.
Unfortunately for the Lady Eagles, they came up short in both games, falling to the Lady Knights 7-3 on May 2 and 7-1 on Thursday.
In the first game, Hiwassee Dam (12-3 overall, 9-3 Smoky Mountain Conference) trailed 7-0 after five innings and tried to rally, but it was too little, too late. Robbinsville (18-2, 12-0) clinched the conference championship for the fifth straight season.
“It was another one of those days where we hit it right to somebody and right to somebody,” head coach Roger Adams said. “We had about four or five of those that I can remember. Just one of them days where the ball wasn’t dropping in our favor.”
Hiwassee Dam had runners reach base in six of seven innings, but didn’t capitalize until late. Robbinsville, on the other hand, did their damage early. Zoie Shuler led off the game with a double to center, while Brooklyn Turpin followed with a walk. Then Memory Frapp singled to score Shuler, and Turpin scored on a sacrifice fly to left by Ivy Odom.
The Lady Eagles got one on in the first but couldn’t score, then left the bases loaded with two outs in the second. They didn’t have another runner reach second base until the fifth inning. Frapp kept Hiwassee Dam off balance in the circle, getting ahead in the count, inducing some weak contact and getting some batted ball luck on line drives.
“We weren’t making our adjustments in the box earlier in the game,” Adams said. “Our pitch selection was not good. We were swinging at bad pitches, had bad swings and we started making some adjustments at the end there, started squaring more balls up and getting hits that we’re used to.”
Robbinsville took advantage, scoring one in the third before busting the game open in the fourth. With two outs and the bases loaded, Turpin hit a grounder to short and Kiera Taylor didn’t make the throw, allowing Halee Anderson to score.
Frapp followed by ripping a bases-clearing triple to left to extend the lead to 7-0, chasing pitcher
Lauren Brooks in the process. Olivia McNabb entered in relief and kept the Lady Knights off the scoreboard, striking out six while giving up just two hits in one walk in 3⅓ innings.
Sky Taylor’s two-run double in the sixth ended in the shutout, and Hiwassee Dam looked like it had the start of rally when Payton Palmer singled to start the inning and Payton McNabb followed with one of her own. However, McNabb was thrown out trying to stretch it into a double. Frapp would retire the last two batters to end the game.
The two teams played three days later and it didn’t go much better. Hiwassee Dam had just two hits off Frapp, including a solo home run by Olivia McNabb.
The Lady Eagles hosted Rosman in the first round of the playoffs yesterday, which took place after this week’s edition of the Cherokee Scout went to press. Even with the tough finish to the regular season, Adams thinks the last four games against Murphy and Robbinsville have prepared his team for what’s to come.
“These last four games for us were laid out very nice for us to go into the playoffs,” Adams said. We’(ve) see(n) some good pitching these last four games that we had. It will get us more prepared for the playoffs.”