Lady Dogs tighten up, eliminate Fyffe from postseason

By Justin Graves
jgraves@cullmantimes.com

May 07, 2008 12:07 am

— ADDISON — It’s been seven years since an Addison High team hasn’t advanced to the state softball tournament — a trend this year’s group of seniors don’t want to change.
Addison kept its state tournament hopes alive Tuesday by taking a best-of-three series from Fyffe.
After suffering a 5-0 loss in game one, the Lady Bulldogs bounced back — beating Fyffe 5-4 in game two and 7-0 in game three.
“It would have been real easy for our girls to hang their heads after the first game,” Addison coach Jeff Scott said. “We talked to our seniors about that, and they took care of it.
“They came back and played hard. That’s all you can ask out of a group of players.”
Facing elimination after game one, Addison didn’t want to take any chances. The Lady Bulldogs took a 2-0 lead in the first inning of game two when Sadie Beam and Kayla Carden had a pair of RBI singles.
Fyffe regained the lead in the third inning with a three-run homer, but Addison battled back in the sixth.
After Hannah Powell pushed Lauren Lowrey and Britany Taylor across the plate with an RBI single, Beam extended the lead to two with an RBI single.
“We finally started to hit the ball,” Scott said. “We knew Fyffe was a good team coming into this. I had been told their top five hitters were pretty good, and they were.”
In game three, right-hander Kayla Carden silenced Fyffe’s bats. The Addison senior held the Lady Devils to two hits while striking out six.
“Kayla came out and did a good job,” Scott said. “She came out throwing strikes. When she does that, she’s tough.”
After scoring one run in the third inning, Addison blew the game open in the bottom of the fourth — with the Lady Bulldogs scoring six runs. Jessy Willingham drove in a pair with an RBI double, while Powell and Lowrey both had RBI singles.
With the win, Addison will host J.B. Pennington in the second round of sub-state. The Lady Tigers were last season’s Class 2A runner-up.