In an evenly matched District 19-3A playoff game in Thrall that lasted three hours, the Rockdale Lady Tigers fell to Lexington 9-7. Lexington will advance to the bi-district round of the state playoffs to face Elkhart on Thursday at Normangee High School.
“We started off pretty strong,” said Erin Palmer, Rockdale High School softball coach about the game that went nine innings. “We always stress that we have to win every single inning. Towards the end we didn’t do as good of a job of winning innings and we couldn’t keep up the momentum that we had going in the beginning of the game.”
The Lady Tigers got ahead early as a sacrifice fly by Karley Leopold scored Ryleigh Eanes to give Rockdale a 1-0 lead in the first inning. RHS went up 2-0 in the bottom of the second when Autumn Montelongo scored on an RBI-single.
Lexington tied the game at two in the top of the third when Alexis Gonzales scored Jordyn Dodd on an RBI-single and Kylee Muhl hit an RBI-single as well to score Mackenzie Foley. Rockdale regained the lead later in the inning when RHS scored twice Haven Jimenez scored on a wild pitch and Emily Depine scored on an error.
In the fourth, the Lady Eagles tied the game again when Gonzales hit a two-run double, but Rockdale stormed ahead for the second straight inning when Mariana Casarez hit an RBI-double to score Eanes and Leopold hit a two-run home run scoring two to put Rockdale up 7-4.
RHS held their lead going into the bottom of the seventh when the Lady Eagles rallied through the meat of the lineup with one out starting with a Kylie Hobbs double. Hobbs scored on a single by Muhl and LHS tied the game on a two-run double by Ashton Andress. Andress brought in Muhl and Natalie Martinez, who made it to first on a call disputed by the RHS coaching staff.
The game went into extra innings, when RHS failed to score in the seventh inning.
Lexington scored at the top of the ninth when an Andress double brought in Haley Martinez. A single by Dodd scored Andress to give the mean green a 9-7 lead. The Lady Tigers were unable to come back at te bottom of the inning, and their season ended with a 9-7 loss to Lexington.
Leopold led the blue-and-gold from the circle for the last time with five strikeouts and 13 hits allowed in nine innings and Jimenez and Montelongo led the team from the box with three hits apiece. Knesek, Eanes, Casarez and Leopold also contributed with two hits each. Andrea Salazar had one.
Kylee Muhl led LHS with five strikeouts, 15 hits allowed and one home run.
SENIORS – “I’m really proud of the hard work we put in especially with the hand we were dealt,” Palmer said. “With the injuries we had we couldn’t count on one person to do it all. Everyone carried the weight on this team and I’m proud of the teamwork they displayed this season.”
This was the final game for Leopold, Knesek and Montelongo, who will all graduate next month.
“Macy and Autumn were varsity softball players for three years,” Palmer said. “Karley was all four since she did some pinch-hitting her freshman year.
“Those three have been important and rose to every challenge we had. They will leave pretty big gaps to fill for our program. I’ll miss them tremendously.”
NEXT YEAR – Palmer said the upside is that they’re the only three players that they’ll lose off a team primarily made up of sophomores and freshmen.
“We had the three seniors and three juniors,” Palmer said and the rest of our team is younger. “It’s great, but I’m challenging all of those girls to maintain the level we’re at right now whether it’s playing summer ball or just getting the keys from me so they can use the field. Especially in our district, we can’t just start from scratch in January.”
The Lady Tigers ended the season 16-16 with a 6-8 finish in District 19-3A. This was the fourth season as head coach for Palmer. This was also the fourth for assistant coach Kirk Palmer and the first for assistant Meghann Wrinkle.
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