Belles drop heartbreaker to Burgaw

Belles besieged by errors in 10-8 loss

By Keith Parsons
For The Pee Dee Post

EDEN — A rally in the seventh inning came up short and the Rockingham All-Star Belles dropped to the losers’ bracket with a 10-8 loss to Burgaw on Sunday in the North Carolina Dixie Youth State Softball Tournament.

Kevin Spradlin | PeeDeePost.com
The Rockingham Belles before the start of a district tournament game in Troy.

Rockingham pushed across three runs in its final at-bat to make it interesting, but a liner to centerfield ended the comeback effort. Greyson Way and Mackenzie Webb split the pitching duties for Rockingham, which defeated Moore County 11-2 on Saturday.

“Greyson and Mackenzie pitched well but we made eight errors between eight different players,” coach Danny Lampley said. “This was one of those games you hope you never have defensively, or on the base paths. Nothing went right. We banged out 11 hits for eight runs but our defense wasn’t up to par.”

Peyton Fann (three RBIs), Owen Bowers (two RBIs) and Macie Gibson (one RBI) each had two hits for Lampley’s squad. Way, Webb, NaLee Jacobs, Lindsay Hunter and Cher Morse each had one hit apiece.

The potential for what the Belles could have done — and expected of themselves — in the double-elimination tourney hit the players and coach hard.

“Burgaw has a decent team, but we make the routine plays and the score could’ve been 8-1,” Danny Lampley said. “I, as their coach take the blame. I need to have them better prepared.”

Rockingham took its only lead at 2-1 with two runs in the second inning. Emily Parsons walked and moved to second on a wild pitch before Hunter sacrificed her to third. Morse reached on an infield hit and stole second, then Fann brought in Parsons with a groundout.

That moved Morse to third, and a nifty bunt hit by Bowers sent her across with the go-ahead run.

In the fourth, after Burgaw took a 3-2 lead, Webb laced a two-out single to left to bring home Lampley with the tying run. But Burgaw scored seven runs in the bottom half to take a commanding 10-3 lead, and the margin still was six runs headed to the seventh.

With one out, Hunter walked, Morse singled and Fann got on with an infield hit to load the bases. Bowers grounded out to short on an oh-so-close play at first for the second out, and Hunter scored to make it 10-5.

Way ripped a two-run double to the fence in left-center — scoring Morse and Fann to make it 10-7 — and Gibson brought home Way with a single to cut the deficit to two.

Unfortunately, Savannah Lampley’s liner failed to drop in, sending Rockingham to an 11:30 a.m. game Monday against Garner.

The Belles were dominant during their district tournament title run two weekends ago in Troy, during which they outscored their opponents 38-3.