INDIAN LAND -- It's become a tradition at Indian Land softball games for the four Lady Warriors' assistant coaches to spit out their gum each time the opposing team scores and start over with a new piece.
Coach Monica Barfield spits hers out, too, but only after the first run. She's superstitious and believes if she grabs another piece, the other team will keep scoring.
Regardless of who's right, there wasn't a lot of wasted bubble gum Wednesday in the Class A Upper State District III finals. Indian Land beat Southside Christian 8-2 and advanced to Saturday's four-team Upper State championship tournament.
The Lady Warriors (17-9) host the winner of the District IV finals between Fox Creek and Whitmire at a time to be determined.
Indian Land is making its 13th straight trip to the finals, dating to 1996, and nine led to state titles. This one came down to an observation the coaches made last week in a 1-0 win over the Lady Sabres.
"We noticed their pitcher was throwing a lot of low, outside corner strikes,'' Barfield said. "So Wednesday afternoon, we set our pitching machine to throw the ball there and took extra batting practice. It really paid off.''
That was 10 more hits than the Lady Warriors had in last week's win against Lady Sabres pitcher Rebecca Holeman.
Indian Land had five hits through the first three innings, but led only 1-0. The run came after Kimber Coley blasted a two-out triple and scored when Jacquelyn Delaune followed with an RBI single.
Get ready to spit out that well-chewed, tasteless bubble gum.
Holeman led off the top of the fourth with Southside Christian's first hit, an infield single. She was sacrificed to second, moved to third on a groundout and scored on Kelsey Davis' single.
The coaches reached into the gum bucket only one more time, in the top of the seventh. Davis led off with a single and later scored the Lady Sabres' final run on Bethany Forrest's single to left.
It was too little, too late. By that time, Indian Land had put seven more runs on the scoreboard.
Three came in the last of the fifth on four hits and an error. Paige Brugh, Delaune and Alyssa Hartley singled. Eighth-grade catcher Beth Martin doubled as the Lady Warriors pushed their lead to 4-1.
The bottom of the sixth was a bonanza for Indian Land, a bust for Southside Christian (17-6).
The Lady Warriors scored their final four runs on four hits. Brugh stroked a one-out triple and scored on Coley's second three-bagger.
Delaune singled Coley home and later crossed the plate on Martin's second straight hit. Kelsey Young went in to run for Martin and stole second. She scored when the next batter, Alex Greenwalt, singled her home.
Delaune and Martin each had three hits to lead the Lady Warriors. Coley, Brugh and Greenwalt added two hits each.
I was glad to get out there and play this one ... waited on it all week,'' Delaune said. "We knew it would be a tough game, but we were a different team today than the one that won 1-0 last Saturday.
"We were ready to play and hit the ball hard. I'm a senior so every game could be my last game. Every pitch could be my last pitch. That's what makes going back to the Upper State so special.''
