By Staff
In the photo at right West Lauderdale catcher Emily Jo Havard shows the ball to the umpire after tagging Ashley Jones (4) out at the plate. PHOTOS BY PAULA MERRITT / THE MERIDIAN STAR
By Rocky Higginbotham / special to The Star
Nov. 1, 2002
JACKSON There was a time this season when the West Lauderdale softball team looked as if it might not even make the playoffs.
Instead, the Lady Knights left the V.A. Fields here Thursday with their sixth state championship.
West swept Kossuth 4-1 and 7-6 in the best-of-three series for the Class 3A state championship, winning Game 2 in dramatic fashion in the bottom of the ninth.
West struggled through a mid-season slump that included a loss to Philadelphia, a thumping at arch-rival Newton County and a desperate rally to avoid the school's first-ever loss to Carthage.
But the Lady Knights were 8-1 in the playoffs.
And, as Boatner and former Lady Knight Ashley Jackson so eloquently put it after Thursday's title … "the players change, but the program stays the same.