Robbinsville – Playing the Lady Knights for the third time this season in the second round of the N.C. High School Athletic Association 1A playoffs, Hiwassee Dam head coach Roger Adams thought the third time could be the charm for his team against star pitcher Memory Frapp.
The Lady Eagles scored a combined four runs off the sophomore in two regular season losses, but were able to get one off her in the top of the first inning to take an early lead with only one out. From there, it was a familiar story.
Frapp retired 16 of the next 17 Hiwassee Dam batters, including 13 in a row. Robbinsville scored in all but the second inning, sending the Lady Eagles home in an 11-1, six-inning loss Thursday.
“For some reason, our girls just can’t seem to get Memory timed up right,” Adams said. “She kept us off balance all game. She was inside-outside on us, up-down, she locates really good.
“She’s a good tough pitcher. We couldn’t seem to square the ball up in the air enough.”
Hiwassee Dam finished the season 13-4 overall, going 0-3 against Robbinsville and 13-1 against everyone else.
After playing loose and focused in a 15-5 first round win against Rosman, Adams said his team had a similar mindset for this game. Hiwassee Dam played Robbinsville (20-2) in the final week of the regular season, and the Lady Knights controlled both games, winning 7-3 on May 2 and 7-1 three days later.
Unlike those two games, the Lady Eagles struck first in this one. Payton Palmer singled to left, then reached second on a passed ball. Payton McNabb followed by slapping a double to center that scored Palmer. From there, Frapp settled in, and Hiwassee Dam only got two hits the rest of the game.
“I thought that Rosman pitcher threw a lot like Memory,” Adams said. “It seemed like to me it was going to be a good matchup for us. I really think the nerves and the atmosphere here just gets to the girls a bit and they get out of sync.”
The Lady Knights took the lead in the bottom of the first, as Frapp tripled home Zoie Shuler and scored on an Ivy Odom RBI single. Both hits came with two strikes, and Olivia McNabb replaced Lauren Brooks in the circle after Odom’s hit.
McNabb, battled through 4⅓ innings, but Robbinsville had runners reach base in every inning, scoring one in the third and the fourth and two in the fifth to extend the lead to 6-1. A line drive hit the top of McNabb’s foot, in the fifth inning, and she stayed in for three more batters before Brooks re-entered in the circle.
The Lady Knights had scattered their damage across five innings, before ending the game in the sixth with five runs. Shuler’s two-run single and Brooklyn Turpin’s single pushed the lead to 9-1 with no outs. Then after Frapp popped out, Odom blasted a two-run shot over the left-field fence to put the game into mercy rule territory.
It was the final game for seniors Brooks, Palmer and Rylie Payne, who led a team that finished second in the Smoky Mountain Conference and won a playoff game for the first time since 2018. While ending a season is always disappointing, it’s even more so for Adams because of how much he enjoyed coaching this team.
“The team camaraderie was really, really good,” Adams said. “Energy was always positive and up and good. The kids worked very hard at practice all the time. They were an absolute joy to coach.”
In the first round of the playoffs on May 10 against No. 19 seed Rosman, the Lady Tigers scored one in the top of the first, but the Lady Eagles answered back with two in the bottom of the inning and led 5-2 before Rosman scored three in the top of the fifth to tie the game.
But Hiwassee Dam had an answer. A big one. The Lady Eagles responded by scoring 10 runs in the bottom of the fifth inning to force a 15-5 mercy rule win.
“It’s something that they’ve been capable to do all year long,” Adams said. “When those bats get hot, they can be a terror to any team.”
Allison Stiles led the way with a 4-4 day at the plate while driving in three runs, and five other players had two hits. Freshman Olivia McNabb went 4⅓ innings in the circle before Lauren Brooks entered in relief to get the final two outs in the top of the fifth after Rosman (13-8) tied the game.