The Russell County Lady Lakers weren’t expecting to come back from playing in Myrtle Beach last week and immediately open district play.
After rain cancellations to start the week, that’s exactly what happened, though, but the Lady Lakers were ready for the challenge, defeating Metcalfe County (2-6, 0-1) 10-0 on Thursday for their first district win of the season.
“We knew we had important district games, and with [the team] not being able to play any games after being off for a week, we just talked about being focused and getting these district wins,” said head coach Tonya Rexroat. “The first district games are always the most stressful and just getting those first wins out of the way was important.”
Senior Tarryn Reynolds led the team in the pitcher’s circle with a complete game shutout. She allowed just three hits and struck out seven Metcalfe County batters.
On offense, all nine batters accounted for at least one hit or one run, and no batter struck out.
Senior Sophie Shearer, junior Jadyn Mann, and Reynolds each had a team-high two hits.
Mann drove in a team-leading five runs. Senior Payton Kinnett and Shearer both drove in two runs, and Reynolds added an RBI as well.
“Yesterday, we came out and we were just solid 1 through 9,” Rexroat said. “We hit line drives, and I think we only had one error … It was pretty impressive.”
Russell County followed up that win with another district victory on Friday night, defeating Clinton County (6-5, 0-2) by a score of 10-6 to move to 2-0 in district play.
Reynolds picked up the win again in the pitcher’s circle. An unexpected burst of rain delayed the game and also turned the field into “a sloppy track,” as Rexroat put it, for the latter half of the contest.
“We had several errors tonight, and those really hurt us,” Rexroat said after the victory against Clinton County. “We had good momentum coming into tonight, 10-run-ruling another district team, but with the rain delay, that just kind of broke our momentum, broke our stride. We had to wait that out, but a win’s a win so we’ll take it.”
Statistics from this game were unavailable as of this writing.
Russell County hosts the Lady Laker Classic today, Saturday, April 16. The event is normally formatted as a tournament, but this season, it will be a triangle format, with Russell County, Taylor County, and Southwestern each playing one another once apiece. The Lady Lakers are scheduled to take on Taylor County at 9 a.m. and Southwestern at 1 p.m.
Russell County will follow up the Lady Laker Classic with two road district games, first against Cumberland County on Tuesday and then Clinton County on Thursday.
