Everyone talks about senior leadership. It’s important, no doubt about it. A senior-laden team has the advantage of experience, maturity, and the confidence that only comes from years of battle-tested engagement.
But sometimes a team needs that scrappy little underclassman (underclassperson?) who hasn’t yet realized that she’s not supposed to be as good as she is. She hasn’t spent a lot of time in the trenches, slugging out games year after year after year. But inevitably, she finds herself in the middle of the action in clutch moments.
And she delivers.
Enter CCA freshman right fielder Mattie Lewis. As an eighth grader last year, she showed poise and fearlessness under pressure, and may have salvaged the Lady Patriots’ state title hopes with a go-ahead home run in the bottom of the fourth inning against the David Emanuel Academy Eagles that propelled CCA to a 12-8 win in the second game of the state tournament.
Thursday afternoon, Lewis came up big again, hitting two home runs and driving in five runs in the third inning of a game the Lady Patriots were losing 1-0 at the time. The opponent? The David Emanuel Academy Eagles.
CCA, ranked #1 in Class A, defeated the #2-ranked Eagles 8-7 in Douglas on Thursday. The Eagles jumped out to an early lead but the Lady Patriots came roaring back in the bottom of the third with eight runs on five hits, two of which were homers by Lewis, to take an 8-1 lead. The Eagles, however, weren’t ready to give up; they scored one in the fourth, two in the fifth, and three in the seventh to give Patriot Nation a few restless moments in the closing minutes of the game.
Trailing 1-0 in the bottom of the third, Lewis led off the inning with a game-tying solo home run. She worked the count to 3-2, fouled off a few pitches, then launched the ball over the left field fence. The ball hit the scoreboard and came back into the field – that would be important a few minutes later.
Following Lewis’s homer, Klair Mercer singled, Brilynn Waldron reached on an error, and Cadence Cravey singled to load the bases with one out. Emma Gourley, who played lights out at short, doubled to score Mercer and Waldron. Cravey’s two-RBI hit put the Lady Patriots ahead 3-1. After a strikeout, Abrah Harris was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Gracie Giddens then walked on four straight pitches to score Cravey and increase CCA’s lead to 4-1. Giddens’s walk brought Lewis to the plate for the second time of the inning. This time, the bases were loaded. There was no extended at-bat, no cat and mouse with the pitcher. Lewis jumped on the first pitch she saw and hit a grand slam to center for her second home run of the inning. Remember that her first home run hit the scoreboard and ricocheted back into the park? The ball with which she hit the grand slam was the same ball she had hit out earlier in the inning. The home run also gave CCA what appeared to be a comfortable 8-1 lead.
The Eagles, however, weren’t done. They still had a few heroics of their own to unveil. David Emanuel plated one run in the fourth and two in the fifth to make it an 8-4 game. The Lady Patriots didn’t score again – and for a minute, it looked like they might need to.
In the top of the seventh, the first two Eagles reached on singles. Addalyn Terwilliger stepped to the plate with two runners on, nobody out, and trailing by four. She fell behind 0-2 but fought back to even the count at two. She then connected and drove a home run of her own to left to cut CCA’s lead to one. Giddens, who threw the final three innings in relief, then retired three straight Eagles for the 8-7 win.
Cravey had two hits while Gourley drove in two. Peighton Harper, who earned the win, started and went four innings, giving up two earned runs on five hits. She struck out two and walked one. Giddens came in for Harper in the fifth; she surrendered five runs (three earned) on six hits.
The Lady Patriots are off until Tuesday when the Trinity Christian Academy Crusaders come to Douglas for a 4:30 p.m. showdown. CCA is now 10-3 on the season.