Fort Mill softball again foils Clover

For the second time this season, the Fort Mill Yellow Jackets handed the Clover Blue Eagles a one-run softball loss Tuesday. This time it was 5-4 as the home team put up five runs in the first inning and held off a furious comeback attempt by Clover in the seventh.

The Blue Eagles’ only two losses in Region 3-4A have come at the hands of the Yellow Jackets.

“We’ve got a core group of young girls,” Fort Mill coach Chuck Stegall said. “And they believe in themselves and each other. We have the potential to beat anybody in the state.”

There was a little bit of a dispute in Clover’s final at-bat as a base runner that would have helped the visitors tie the score was called out for running out of the base path.

The Blue Eagles had runners on first and second with one out when Missy Mavrogian hit a grounder towards second. The second baseman reached to tag the runner going to second, who avoided the tag. It was determined that she ran out of the base line for the second out.

It was a pivotal play because the next batter, Elizabeth Edmunds, cleared the bases with a hit down the left-field line that was just out of the reach of the left-fielder to score two. Clover now trailed 5-4, but had the runner been on second the score would have been tied.

Fort Mill’s Bella Roy got Tiffany Domingue to pop up behind first base and the second baseman made the catch crossing the foul line to end the game.

“He saw it and called it immediately,” Stegall said of the umpire. “He had a good angle on it.”

The Yellow Jackets did all their damage in the first inning. The first five batters reached base safely and Fort Mill got five of its six hits in the inning. Lauren Collie had the big hit with a two-run double down the line and into the right field corner to make it 3-0.

After the five runs scored in the first inning, Edmunds settled down on the mound for Clover and retired 19 of the final 20 batters she faced, only allowing one more hit. Two of the runs in the first were unearned.

Roy, a freshman, allowed four runs, two earned, on eight hits while striking out five in seven innings.

The Blue Eagles out-hit Fort Mill 8-6.

Roy pitched out of several jams and did not give up her first hit until the third inning, but it was a loud one as Blake Wallert took her deep over the fence in left-center for a two-out solo home run. Micah Sherwood followed with a triple to left field, but Roy got Marisa Harkey to fly out to right for the third out.

In the Clover fifth, the Blue Eagles loaded the bases with one out but Sherwood popped to third and Harkey struck out swinging to end the threat and keep the score at 5-1.

The Blue Eagles strung together three straight hits with two outs again in the sixth. The last one was an RBI-blooper into shallow center off the bat of Hannah Curtis that scored Tiffany Domingue and made it 5-2. That set the stage for the dramatics in the seventh inning.

The Yellow Jackets return to Region 3-4A action at home Friday night against Nation Ford.

This story was originally published April 7, 2015 at 8:34 PM with the headline "Fort Mill softball again foils Clover."