All it took for the Fayetteville softball team to finally get going on Monday evening was a little pressure.
Facing an 8-3 deficit to host Batavia in the top of the last inning, the Lady Rockets went to work.
Fayetteville scored seven runs with two outs in their final at-bat thanks to some timely hitting as well as a few key Lady Bulldog errors en route to a come from behind 10-9 non-conference victory.
“We put the bat on the ball. They went up there with confidence,” Fayetteville coach Carmen Carson said after the game. “They knew that this was it. It’s now or never. I think they showed a lot of confidence. I think they grew up a lot in this game.”
Batavia jumped ahead early with three runs in the first inning and two more in the second as they seemingly seized control early and never let go.
Once they added three insurance runs in the fifth inning thanks to run scoring singles from Alli Nickley and Haley Kilgore, it looked as if they Lady Bulldogs were going to roll to a victory as they entered the seventh inning with the five run lead.
Lady Bulldogs pitcher Lexi Lipps pitched a solid game up to the seventh inning as she was able to escape most of the trouble she faced.
And the seventh inning got off to a pretty good start as Lipps got Kaitlyn Feck to ground out to second base to start the inning.
She then gave up an innocent enough double to the Lady Rockets number nine hitter Riley Wolf with one out.
Though Lipps got the next batter, Ashley Moore, to line out to shortstop for the second out, Carson thought Wolf’s double was the wake up call.
“We had a huge hit from our freshman,” Carson said. “The big double came from our ninth batter, freshman Riley Wolf. I think it, kind of, urged the rest of them on.”
After Tori Huber worked a walk, Lipps got Claire Carson to lift a pop up behind second baseman Morgan Leach in shallow right field.
Leach seemed to have a beat on the ball but with a stiff wind pushing the ball out a little bit, and turning Leach around, it dropped. The drop allowed Wolf to score as Carson reached first base safely.
Lipps then got the next batter, McKenna Hammons, to hit a grounder towards the shortstop. However, Kilgore couldn’t come up with it cleanly as Huber scored to make it an 8-5 game.
Either of the plays could have been the game’s final out.
“I went out to the mound and told them, ‘Relax. This is still an 8-5 ballgame. We just need one out,’” Batavia coach Tim Morrow said. “And we couldn’t get the one out.”
The Lady Rockets quickly tied the game at eight on a Whitney Boothby two run double to right center field and Carrie Smith single to left field.
And the Lady Rockets weren’t done yet. They continued to put pressure on the Lady Bulldogs and it paid off.
Emma Allen then hit a ground ball to third base that third baseman Andi Otten threw wide of first base. The error allowed Smith to score to give Fayetteville a 9-8 lead, their first of the game.
With Feck back at the plate, Allen scored on a wild pitch to cap off a wild top of the seventh for the Lady Rockets as they took a 10-8 lead.
“Too many errors. Too many mistakes in the seventh inning,” Morrow said.
He added, “Give all the credit to Fayetteville, they never quit. They played well and they played to the end. We got complacent because we were ahead and thought we had the game in the bag. They turned around and put a seven spot on us.”
Despite what happened in the top of the inning, the Lady Bulldogs didn’t just pack it in.
After Boothby got an out to start the inning, Leach hit a hard grounder that Carson couldn’t corral for an infield single.
An out later, Erica Bourque put a charge into a ball that went into the right center field gap.
Leach sped around the bases to score and make it a 10-9 game but that would be the final run scored as the Lady Rockets caught Bourque trying to stretch her hit to a triple to end what turned out to be a game that got away from the Lady Bulldogs.
The loss was a microcosm of the Lady Bulldogs season so far.
With the loss, Batavia drops to 3-5 on the season and 2-1 in conference.
“I feel like we’re playing some good softball at times and then at times we’re not playing some good softball,” Morrow said. “We need to work on some things.”