Fort Mill uses 13-run inning to win share of region title, plus all Rock Hill-area scores
On a night when there was so much at stake — from rivalry bragging rights to region championship trophies to playoff home-field advantage positioning — the Fort Mill softball team entered the top of the sixth inning needing the proverbial dam to break.
The Yellow Jackets didn’t just break the dam, though.
They battered it to smithereens.
The Yellow Jackets used a 13-run top-of-the-sixth inning to break a previously scoreless game and propel themselves to a 13-1 win over rival Nation Ford on Friday night. The win delivers Fort Mill a co-region championship and a No. 1 seed in the Class 5A playoffs, which begin next week. (Fort Mill shares the Region 3-5A title with Clover but takes the top seed because Fort Mill edged Clover in the runs-allowed tiebreaker.)
“Once you get the ice broken sometimes, you can just let it roll,” Fort Mill head coach Chuck Stegall told The Herald after the game, shrugging in disbelief of his team’s streaky output. “And that’s what we were able to do: Let it roll.”
Entering the top of the sixth inning, the game was scoreless. Nation Ford and Fort Mill were playing solid defense — which included a Nation Ford left-fielder Emma Skovra SportsCenter-worthy diving catch in the top of the fifth — and both starting pitchers were able to work out of jams when they needed to.
But the sixth inning changed everything.
Here’s what happened:
▪ Seniors Ava Balsinger and Maddie Drerup singled, and then Trista Reid reached first on a dropped third strike to load the bases with no outs. Senior Trinity Wall then nailed a ground-rule double down the left baseline to put two runners in to make it 2-0.
▪ Emma Tisdale slapped a sacrifice fly to deep centerfield to score another to make it 3-0, and then Sydnie Spears got hit by a pitch before Vicki Lott slapped a home run over the left-field wall to make it 6-0.
▪ The floodgates opened from there. The rest of the inning featured a double, two RBI singles and two more home runs — one from Balsinger and one from Trinity Wall (who nailed the Nation Ford scoreboard in left field in the process).
The end result? Thirteen runs.
Nation Ford didn’t give up in the bottom of the sixth. An Abigail Loser single sent in Olivia Southerly to put the Falcons on the board, but that was it. The game ended after that inning did in a mercy rule.
Drerup, Fort Mill’s right-handed ace, was herself on Friday. She pitched a complete-game shutout against Nation Ford earlier in the week and dealt again Friday — six hits allowed, two walks, nine strikeouts in six innings.
“Coming into tonight, we said, ‘Hey, they’re going to be scrappy, they’re going to try stuff tonight that they didn’t try the other night,’” Stegall said. “She just works on her pitching and does a good job at it. And I’ll tell you what: She’s also hot with the bat. She was 3-of-3 Monday night with two home runs. And now tonight, she had a few huge hits for us.”
“She’s just a solid ball player.”
Friday’s win had sentimental value to Stegall. The coach who’s been at the Yellow Jacket helm for 22 years will be retiring at the end of this year, and Friday night was his last regular season game.
And he hopes — and reason suggests — Friday won’t be his last win.
“This is bittersweet, standing on the field and looking at the lights for the last time of the regular season,” Stegall said. He then paused, “Glad to win. And the playoff trail starts Monday.”
Here’s everything else you should know from this week about local baseball and softball action. This week marked the final week of the regular season, so the region standings printed below are final.
Other Rock Hill-area softball scores
Monday
Ridge View 5, Northwestern 4
Fort Mill 5, Nation Ford 0
Clover 4, Blythewood 1
Byrnes 17, Catawba Ridge 5
Tuesday
Spring Valley 15, Rock Hill 4
Lancaster 17, Chester 1
Cheraw 4, Andrew Jackson 2
Lewisville 19, Whitmire 8
Wednesday
York 2, Indian Land 0
Andrew Jackson 14, Chester 5
Fairfield Central 20, Great Falls 10
Thursday
Catawba Ridge 13, Lancaster 3
Indian Land 15, South Pointe 0
York 13, Chester 3
Andrew Jackson 5, Chesterfield 1
Friday
Fort Mill 13, Nation Ford 1
Clover 11, Boiling Springs 1
Catawba Ridge 10, Rock Hill 0
Region softball standings
Region 3-5A - 1. Fort Mill 7-1/11-5; 2. Clover 7-1/16-5; 3. Gaffney 3-5/5-10; 4. Nation Ford 2-6/9-12; 5. Boiling Springs 1-7/11-14.
Region 4-5A - 1. Blythewood 8-0/16-5; 2. Spring Valley 5-2/11-11; 3. Rock Hill 4-4/8-15; 4. Ridge View 2-6/10-6; 5. Northwestern 0-7/0-8.
Region 3-4A - 1. Catawba Ridge 7-1/20-3; 2. Lancaster 6-2/16-6; 3. York 4-4/9-5; 4. Indian Land 3-5/5-11; 5. South Pointe 0-8/0-12.
Region 4-3A - 1. Mid-Carolina 7-1/12-5; 2. Chester 6-2/7-8; 3. Fairfield Central 4-4/7-7; 4. Lower Richland 3-5/3-10; 5. Keenan 0-8/2-11.
Region 4-2A - 1. Buford 9-0/14-4; 2. Cheraw 6-3/8-6; 3. Chesterfield 6-4/7-7; 4. Andrew Jackson 5-5/12-8; 5. North Central 2-7/2-12; 6. Pageland Central 0-9/0-12.
Region 2-1A - 1. Lewisville 8-0/17-7; 2. McBee 4-2/7-4; 3. Great Falls 4-4/5-7; 4. CA Johnson 2-4/2-6; 5. Midlands Stem 0-8/0-8.
Rock Hill-area baseball scores
Monday
Fort Mill 9, Gaffney 0
Boiling Springs 18, Nation Ford 6
Clover 3, York 0
Rock Hill 10, Chester 7
Indian Land 4, Lewisville 3
Union County 8, Lancaster 6
Union County 4, Lancaster 3
Fairfield Central 10, York Prep 7
Tuesday
South Pointe 7, Rock Hill 4
Union County 12, Chester 9
Wednesday
Rock Hill 5, South Pointe 3
Fort Mill 8, Gaffney 7
Clover 5, Lancaster 0
Boiling Springs 5, Nation Ford 0
Northwestern 15, Ridge View 5
Indian Land 3, Lewisville 2
Andrew Jackson 10, Chesterfield 3
York Prep 17, Keenan 1
Fairfield Central 20, Great Falls 1
Thursday
Indian Land 2, Northwestern 0
Fort Mill 13, Gaffney 7
Lewisville 6, Union County 5
Friday
Rock Hill 7, Chester 2
Clover 9, York 4
Andrew Jackson 6, Chesterfield 4
Region baseball standings
Region 3-5A - 1. Clover 11-1/24-2; 2. Boiling Springs 9-3/17-6; 3. Fort Mill 5-7/17-7; 4. Nation Ford 4-8/6-17; 5. Gaffney 1-11/3-20.
Region 4-5A - 1. Blythewood 12-0/25-1; 2. Spring Valley 7-5/10-11; 3. Northwestern 7-5/12-9; 4. Rock Hill 4-8/10-12; 5. Ridge View 0-12/1-16.
Region 3-4A - 1. Catawba Ridge 10-2/19-5; 2. York 8-4/12-12; 3. Indian Land 6-6/14-10; 4. South Pointe 3-9/8-14; 5. Lancaster 3-9/6-16.
Region 4-3A - 1. Mid-Carolina 8-0/15-4; 2. Chester 6-2/8-10; 3. Fairfield Central 4-4/9-8; 4. Lower Richland 2-6/4-8; 5. Keenan 0-8/2-10.
Region 4-2A - 1. Andrew Jackson 12-0/25-1; 2. Buford 9-3/15-10; 3. Chesterfield 7-5/16-7; 4. North Central 6-5/9-7; 5. Cheraw 4-8/8-12; 6. Pageland Central 3-8/3-11; 7. York Prep 0-12/2-14.
Region 2-1A - 1. Lewisville 6-0/10-14; 2. McBee 4-2/8-13; 3. Great Falls 2-4/3-11; 4. CA Johnson 0-6/0-10.
When do playoffs start?
Next week. Stay up-to-date on the South Carolina High School League’s baseball and softball playoff brackets on the SCHSL website.
This story was originally published April 29, 2022 at 11:16 PM.
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