Eagle diamond action
BY KATHY PICKENS
The Greenville Standard
In baseball action last week, Fort Dale faced Chambers Academy Monday in a rainy, windy game at home.
The Eagles were up 2-1 after the 5th inning, but the 6th and 7th innings saw hot bats for Chambers and five fielding errors by FDA which combined to yield a 7-2 loss by the Eagles.
Noah Pickens, Garrett Simmons, and Stephen Waggoner had the only three hits of the game with singles.
The team traveled to Evergreen to play Sparta on Thursday. Junior first baseman Clay Benson had a big night for the Eagles.
He appeared at the plate twice in the 4th inning, batting a double before taking one out well over the center field fence for a homerun.
He had four RBI’s on the night and crossed the plate three times. He also pitched the fourth inning striking out three of four batters and allowing no runs.
The Eagles pounded out 13 hits and had nine batters hit by pitches.
Head coach Marshall Watts utilized this late-season, non-region game to give younger players some field time and develop pitching.
The final score was 17-9 Fort Dale.
The Eagles will play a best two out of three series at Tuscaloosa Academy for round one of the playoffs on Friday, April 22.
The Fort Dale varsity softball team had a successful week winning two of three games and improving their record to 15-12.
Monday night’s home game went into extra innings when the Lady Eagles tied Chambers Academy 6-6 after seven innings.
At the top of the 8th, Chambers’ second batter tripled for an RBI and then scored on a sacrifice fly to center, going ahead 8-6.
At the bottom of the 8th, Anna Claire Thomas’s single scored Mary Ellen Simmons, and later pinch runner Kinley Woodard scored on a fielder’s choice to tie up the game-8-8 with two outs.
Thomas stole home on a wild pitch to win the game 9-8.
The Lady Eagles beat Crenshaw Christian Academy in Luverne on Tuesday 16-4 in just four innings.
Claire Campbell pitched a complete game for the win, facing 18 batters and striking out six.
Thomas went 4-for-4 at the plate with a single, two doubles, and a triple.
Fort Dale fell to Sparta Academy in Evergreen 3-5 in a tight game.
The Lady Eagles runs came in the 1st inning with a sacrifice fly to center field by freshman Brinkley Long that scored Thomas and Madison Freeman and Cahley Acreman stole home after one of her two doubles of the day.
In playoff news, with Tuscaloosa Academy electing to forfeit the first-round series, the Lady Eagles advance straight to the state tournament at Lagoon Park in Montgomery on May 6 and 7.
