Clarkdale advances to finals

By By Stan Caldwell / EMG Sports Writer
Oct. 24, 2002
SUMRALL The Clarkdale Lady Bulldogs brought the whipping stick with them Wednesday, and used it to get back to familiar territory.
The Lady Bulldogs were supremely dominant in sweeping past Sumrall in the Class 2A South State championship slow-pitch softball series, with easy 10-0 and 14-5 victories in the best-of-three series.
The victory sent Clarkdale (23-11-1) to the 2A state finals for the ninth time in the past 10 seasons. The Lady Bulldogs will face Mooreville Saturday in the state championship series.
The series was postponed a day to allow the Mississippi High School Activities Association to hear an appeal by Mercy Cross, Clarkdale's victim in the previous round, which alleged that the bat Clarkdale used was illegal.
One could be forgiven for thinking that there was something about the bat, because the Lady Bulldogs clobbered the ball like it was sitting on a tee. Clarkdale clobbered 29 hits against the Lady Bobcats, and there was nothing cheap about any of them.
Clarkdale was particularly ferocious in the middle part of the batting order. The Lady Bulldogs were 12-of-16 from the third through the sixth position in the order for the two games, which is just as Roberson designed it.
Sumrall, which finished its season 20-7, hung with Clarkdale for awhile in the opener. The Lady Bulldogs got a couple of runs in the top of the first. Orr led off with a single, but was erased on a fielder's choice off the bat of Brandi Wright. Megan Potate singled, and Emily Howard drove both runs in with a double.
Still clinging to a 2-0 lead, Howard led off the decisive fourth inning with a triple, igniting a 7-run rally. Savannah Satcher followed with another triple and four consecutive singles subsequently broke the game open.
Satcher led off the fifth inning with a single and scored on a double by Thrash to make it 10-0, and Thrash pitched an uneventful bottom of the fifth to close out the game on the 10-run rule. Thrash scattered four harmless singles for the win.
Sumrall finally showed signs of life in the top of the first inning of the nightcap, scoring three runs. Brittany Stevens got a one-out single, Kambry Bond drew a walk and both came home on a triple by Rachel Whitehead, who later scored on an error.
But that only delayed the inevitable, as Clarkdale immediately reassumed command in the bottom of the first with a six-run rally. Orr led off with a triple and scored on a single by Wright. Potate tripled, then Howard, Satcher and Thrash drilled consecutive singles.
Clarkdale padded its lead with five more runs in the second, as Orr had a leadoff double, Howard had a two-run triple and Thrash added a two-run double.
The Lady Bulldogs added a run in the bottom of the third and two in the fifth, all on inside-the-park home runs. Orr had one, then Potate and Howard had back-to-back homers in the fifth.
The Lady Bobcats scored twice in the fifth on a leadoff triple by Jessica Sullivan, an error off the bat of Leslie Shumock and a sacrifice fly by Whitehead, but it wasn't near enough to slow down Clarkdale. Stevens took the loss in both games.
Thrash wasn't quite as dominant in the second game as she was in the first, giving up eight hits, but she was plenty good enough.
It wasn't always a certain thing that Clarkdale would make it this far, despite the Lady Bulldogs' tradition. Clarkdale struggled earlier in the season against a schedule that saw it face 16 teams that made the playoffs. But that schedule toughened the Lady Bulldogs for the playoffs.