The Spartans got a lead-off walk in the third and moved the runner with a groundout, setting up an RBI single to tie the game at 1-1.<\/p>\n
However, Roberts responded in the bottom of the inning with a home run, restoring a 2-1 lead after a runner got caught stealing just before the shot.<\/p>\n
That proved crucial as Saraland took the lead in the sixth. The inning started with a controversial single as the umpire ruled that the Jags first baseman lifted her foot off the bag when catching the ball. Spain Park argued otherwise, but the call stood.<\/p>\n
The runner turned into the tying run off a high throw to first, and two batters later, an RBI single to center gave the Spartans a 3-2 lead they didn\u2019t relinquish.<\/p>\n
The Jags went down to the lower bracket and got in another early defensive duel with Gardendale. Spain Park\u2019s breakthrough came in the bottom of the second when it loaded up the bases but got doubled up at first. Roberts bounced back to score Mary Payton Dees for the opening run.<\/p>\n
The Jags built on that lead in the bottom of the third, following up a double from Wade with a two-run homer by King for the 3-0 lead.<\/p>\n
The big stretch continued in the fourth with a walk and single to start. Two batters later, Whitaker brought two runs home with a single before beating the throw home to make it 6-0.<\/p>\n
That gave Spain Park enough of a cushion to withstand a three-run rally and finish out the 6-3 win.<\/p>\n
King was 2-for-3 with two RBI and two runs, and Whitaker went 2-for-3 with a walk, two RBI and a run. Young got the win with six scoreless innings, allowing just four hits and a walk.<\/p>\n
After the day ended, Ritenour was proud of her pitching staff of Young and Maxie Provost as well as bunting better and the energy in the dugout. Most importantly though, she credited her team for sticking to the course after the loss and fueling another win.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that they just reset,\u201d Ritenour said of the team\u2019s response to the loss. \u201cThey knew they had to get back to business. We knew we still had life in us, so it was just strictly straight to business, do what we got to do to make it to next day, and we’ll just keep making adjustments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spain Park must now win four games on Tuesday, May 19 to win a state championship. The first comes in a rematch with No. 1 Hartselle at 10:45 a.m., and a win there would put the Jags in the lower bracket finals with Saraland at 2:15 p.m. Emerge from that, and the Helena Huskies await for another two showdowns at 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. for the state title.<\/p>\n
To pull off a run at glory, Ritenour believes it comes down to doing what worked today even more.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s a lot of respectable teams in this tournament, which is so fun,\u201d Ritenour said. \u201cI guess just trusting each other and just keep relying on our pitching staff and each other passing the bat and doing their jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Spartans got a lead-off walk in the third and moved the runner with a groundout, setting up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[543,541,4004,17,539,540],"class_list":["post-26114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-280-reporter","tag-hoover","tag-softball","tag-spain","tag-spain-park","tag-spain-park-high-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}