Dripping Springs’ Lady Tigers onto area

Playoff games for spring sports are almost always iffy due to weather.

Theweatherforecastfor last week was predicting severe thunderstorms — just about the time the softball team was due to be playing its game. The wise old owls chose to back up their starting times and get their games in before the storms hit. It was their first game in bi-district competition with Stony Point and came away with a 5-1 victory. They played the next day when the storm had passed to salt away the title with a 7-3 advantage.

Earlier in the week, the Lady Tigers took on Hays ISD’s Johnson High School to determine the first seed in the playoffs. DSHS prevailed in nine innings, 3-2.

That seed game was important because there was a lot of difference in playing third and fourth teams from the next district. The prior games with Johnson had been close, and this one would be no different. Thanks to three errors in the first two innings, Johnson took a 2-0 lead. DSHS had been there before and was undaunted. Jai-Lynn Flores, the pitcher, helped her cause with a homerun in the fourth. In the sixth with two outs, Kate Tressler drove in Kiera Hector to tie the game. In the fateful ninth, Elianna Amato led off with a triple, and Kristen Zeman got the RBI single. Flores allowed 3H, 2R, 2W, 8K.

Tired of keeping it close, the Lady Tigers opened with a run, then added two in the third and finished with one run in each of the fourth and fifth. Stony Point got their one in the seventh, but it was too late. Getting the four hits for the Lady Tigers were Zeman, Taylor Anderson, Amato and Linan Scott. Jordan Cox added to her complete game numbers with another masterful outing. She gave up 2H, 1R, 1ER, 8K.

The next day, it looked like a third game might be necessary as Stony Point scored three runs in their first inning after the Lady Tigers scored to open the game. DSHS did not let it phase them because they had already experienced such a situation. They would score another run in the second and tied it up with another single run in the fifth. It was game, set in the seventh when the Lady Tigers crossed the plate four more times.

This puts them in the area game with San Antonio Clark.

Getting the nine hits for the Lady Tigers were T. Anderson 3, Erika Kanetzky 2, Zeman, Amato, Cox and Flores. It is a major plus for a coach to be able to call on any one of three top pitchers and know you will get a complete game. This time, it was Haiden Anderson giving up 3H, 3R, 1W and 7K's.