Maybe it was their six day layoff, or perhaps the early afternoon start. Whatever the reason, it took the Lady Scots an uncharacteristic five innings before they plated a single run against W.T. White High School in opening the bi-district round of the UIL playoffs Thursday at Lady Longhorn Field. HP would beat W.T. White 5-0 to take a 1-0 lead in this best-of-three game series.
Highland Park had not played since the previous Friday when they hosted Richardson High School in the final district game of the season. HP hammered the Lady Eagles then, blasting 12 hits and scoring 8, 7 and 3 runs in the first three innings; ending the game early, 18-0, on a run ruled game. The win solidified the Lady Scots as the 2016 District 10-6A Champion with a 13-1 district record, earning them the match-up against the #4 seed from District 9-6A, W.T. White.
In Thursday's game, the top of the first started encouragingly enough for HP, when, with one out, senior captain Emily Singh rapped a line drive into center field. The next batters in the HP lineup couldn't follow-up with any more hits to push her along however, stranding Singh on first. This same scenario would play out in the 2nd inning when seniors Katie Bell and Lauren Jackson each singled, and again in the 3rd and 4th innings when junior Olivia Davis laced a line-drive lead-off double, or when Singh hit another single to left -- in each case, the Lady Scots could not string hits together to score any runs. All told, HP would leave 7 runners on-base.
The Lady Scots fortunes would finally change in the top of fifth, though, after senior Grayson Rutherford led-off the inning with a single to right. HP's sophomore shortstop Amanda Reenan then came to the plate, took two balls -- which allowed the speedy Rutherford to steal to 2nd and 3rd base -- then proceeded to lift a 2-0 fastball to deep centerfield, scoring the tagging Rutherford.
That one run seemed to generate some momentum for Highland Park. In the Lady Scot half of the fifth, both Katie Bell and Olivia Davis safely reached base after two separate errors from the left side of the Lady Longhorn infield. After HP's Head Varsity Coach, Meredith Townsend, substituted Bell for base-running specialist Sarah Hall (who promptly stole third), HP third baseman Lauren Jackson logged her second base hit of the day by singling to centerfield, scoring both Hall and Davis. Jackson herself would score on the third infield error of the inning after a sharp grounder hit by Rutherford was too much for W.T. White’s 3rd baseman to handle. Rutherford accounted for the fourth Scottie run of the inning when Amanda Reenan scorched a 1-0 pitch into the left-center gap. Going into the bottom of the 5th, HP had a 5-0 lead.
From there, HP's 2015 Pitcher of the Year, Katie Bell, would continue to baffle the W.T. White batters as she had been doing all afternoon. In 7 innings of shut-out work, Bell threw only 67 pitches, striking-out 9 and walking only one. In fact, were it not for a soft flare that was hit just beyond the pitcher's circle, Bell would have had her fourth no-hitter on the season. As it was, her one-hit shut-out was exquisite and had to leave the Lady Longhorns wondering what they can do to generate offense prior to game 2 Saturday afternoon at 1pm at the HP Softball Field.