Worth County softball falls in opener at state tournament

COLUMBUS — Worth County’s offense struggled to get anything going on Thursday night and now a tough task got even harder if the Lady Rams want to become state champions.

Worth County fell to West Laurens 3-0 in the Class AAAA state softball tournament at South Commons Park and will have to fight its way out of the loser’s bracket in the double-elimination tourney.

The Lady Rams fell behind 1-0 in the bottom of the first inning. West Laurens was helped in the inning by two balks that were called against Caroline Newton. The umpires called her for not pausing before throwing a pitch.

“I didn’t think that we came out and played our best game,” Worth coach Kaleb Hathcock said. “We had a little bit of adversity at the beginning of the game and that kind of changed our mindset. It put us somewhere we hadn’t been often lately. I think it got on them a little bit, and we kind of never recovered from the first inning.”

In the second inning, a two-out single followed by a double from Logan Strickland gave West Laurens a 2-0 lead.

Worth was held hitless through the first two innings of the game before loading the bases with two walks and a single in the third inning. But the Lady Rams failed to push any runs across the plate in the inning and did not muster much of a threat for the rest of the game. They did not get a runner past second base after the third inning.

“The West Laurens pitcher kept us off-balance all night long,” Hathcock said. “She did a good job in the circle and I think she had a lot to do with it.”

The Lady Raiders played small ball in the fourth inning to add to their lead. A single followed by a sacrifice and another single gave them a 3-0 lead. They got two more runners on base, but Newton worked out of the jam.

Worth went away quietly in the seventh inning going down in order. The Lady Rams’ offense managed only four hits in the game, all singles.

Worth will play today at 11:00 a.m. The Lady Rams face Walnut Grove, who lost to Heritage-Catoosa. If Worth wins, they will have to win two more games Friday to advance to Saturday.

Newton will start the first game, but Hatchcock said it would be all hands on deck.