BOURBON – First-year South Central High School softball coach Tony Wallace said he doesn’t mind his team being the visiting squad. It allows the Satellites to, as Wallace put it, strike first. That’s exactly what they did Tuesday night, putting six runs on the board in the first inning en route to a 7-2 win over Triton in a Class 1A regional final in Bourbon. The game was a rematch of the 2014 regional final, which Triton won 4-1 at South Central. “That’s something we’ve done all year,” Wallace said of his squad’s quick start. “We like to strike first, so being the visitors doesn’t really faze us that much because we like to come out and strike blood first. If we can get our first runner or two on and move them around because we’ve got some good sticks up after that, we’re happy campers. We want to go off that momentum.” South Central, which improved to 22-7 and advanced to Saturday’s Clinton Prairie Semistate against second-ranked and defending state champion North Miami, certainly built some momentum. The Satellites’ offensive outburst in the first inning included five hits. Among the five hits in the opening frame were a home run by freshman Breanna Brewer and a double by sophomore Savannah Becker. South Central, which pounded out 11 hits in the win, scored its other run in the third inning, while the hosts scored their two runs in the sixth inning. “We gave up some runs in that first inning ... if we could have got out of there with just two runs ... but we gave up some unearned runs after that,” said Triton coach Steve McBride, whose team’s season ended with a 20-11 record. “At this level, you can’t do that. We dodged that bullet last week. We didn’t dodge it this week.” While South Central had five hits in the first inning, Triton had just four hits in the game. Becker, who controlled the game with both her speed and location, retired the first 11 batters she faced. Freshman Nicole Sechrist was the first Triton player to reach base, as she hit a two-out single in the fourth inning. The Lady Trojans’ other three hits were a double by junior Zoee Stephan and singles by senior Brycelyn Garbison and junior Kayla Kreft. The only other Triton batter to reach base was freshman Taytum Hargrave, who was hit by a pitch after Stephan doubled in the sixth inning. Becker pitched all seven innings for South Central and struck out five. “It’s speed we’ve seen before, but we haven’t seen it recently,” McBride said of Becker’s pitching effort. “We’ve seen good pitching this year, but our sectional wasn’t that strong. We didn’t see strong pitching. I knew this was going to be a factor.” Garbison was charged with the loss in the circle. She pitched six innings for Triton, giving up 11 hits and seven runs. She struck out one. Freshman Courtney Jennings worked the seventh inning and sat the Satellites down 1-2-3. With the loss, McBride and his team must bid farwell to eight seniors – Krystal Sellers, Lillie Berger, Halie Zimmerman, Lexee Lemler, Hannah Jennings, Lauren Hostrawser, Shelby Wagoner and Garbison.
SOUTH CENTRAL 7, TRITON 2 SC 601 000 0 – 7 11 1 Tri 000 002 0 – 2 4 3 S. Central – Savannah Becker (W, 7IP, 4H, 2R, 5K, 0BB) Triton – Brycelyn Garbison (L, 6IP, 11H, 7R, 1K, 0BB), Courtney Jennings (1IP, 0H, 0R, 0K, 0BB) 2B – Becker (SC), Morgan Wright (SC), Emily Raub (SC), Zoee Stephan (Tri) HR – Breanna Brewer (SC) Records: S. Central 22-7, Triton 20-11
