Last Friday night, the Highland Park High School varsity softball team won an exciting game at home against Mesquite Horn. HP came back from one run down in the last half of the seventh inning to beat the Lady Jaguars 5-4 in walk-off fashion.
Prior to Friday's game, on the previous Tuesday, the Lady Scots hammered-out 16 hits on their way to a 12-5 victory over Richardson Pearce at Lady Mustang Field.
The victories keep Highland Park undefeated in District 10-6A play and in first place by two games with four district games remaining. The win Friday also ensures the Lady Scots of their second consecutive playoff berth -- a first for Head Varsity Coach Meredith Townsend’s crew -- not to mention the team's earliest post-season qualification.
In their game at JJ Pearce on Tuesday, April 5th, HP would score early and kept JJ Pearce from ever getting close in the game. HP scored in the first three innings, with key hits from Amanda Reenan, Sunny Bowden and Rennie Orr in the first inning, and by Olivia Davis and Grayson Rutherford in the third. Through three innings, HP would be up 7-2.
In the Scottie fifth, Highland Park’s sophomore Amanda Reenan (who had a huge week) led off the inning with a solo home run, a deep, towering shot to straight-away center field. After an Emily Singh walk and another Sunny Bowden base hit, senior Rennie Orr hit a double down the left field line -- knocking in two more HP runs. When junior Olivia Davis walked, senior third baseman Lauren Jackson then took a 1-0 fastball into left field scoring Davis. The Lady Scots were up 11-2.
As the top of the 5th started, so did the top of the 6th -- on an Amanda Reenan solo homer. The dinger was Reenan’s third on the season. Pearce would score two runs in the 6th on three base hits and another in the 7th before eventually succumbing to the Lady Scots and to senior pitcher Katie Bell. In registering the win, Bell threw 7 complete innings, faced 28 batters, gave up 9 hits and struck-out 9, walking only one Lady Mustang.
Unlike the win over Pearce, last Friday night's victory against Mesquite Horn wasn’t decided until the bottom of the seventh. Before that, the game was a back-and-forth affair with several lead changes.
After the Lady Jaguars took an early 1-0 lead in the first, HP matched the run on an Emily Singh one-out double to right. Singh would advance to third base after fellow senior captain Sunny Bowden hit a line drive over the pitcher’s head and into centerfield for a base hit. Singh would later score on a tag-up, after Rennie Orr's sacrifice fly to left-center field. After one, the score was knotted at 1-1.
Singh and Bowden, who, combined, were 5-for-8 on the night, came through again in the Scottie 3rd to break the tie. Singh led off with a base hit up the middle followed by Bowden’s single to right. Both Lady Scots would score when junior right fielder Olivia Davis belted a 1-0 off-speed pitch to left for a double. Through three innings, HP was up 3-1.
Horn kept battling back in the game, however, scoring one run in the 4th off a solo home run and two more in the 6th after a walk, a double and a base hit. While the Lady Scots threatened in the bottom of the 6th -- having runners on first and second base with only one out -- HP could not push the runs across and were still down 3-4 going into the 7th inning.
In the circle, Katie Bell would put the Lady Jags away in order in the top of the 7th. In 7 full innings of work, HP’s senior gave up 4 runs on 5 hits, walked two and struck-out 6. Bell has 136 strike-outs on the season and is in top 10 in the Dallas area in strikeouts.
Down 3-4, and with the team’s nine-straight district win streak on the line, the Lady Scots' lead-off batter, Amanda Reenan, came to the plate -- she would set the tone for the inning by blasting her fourth home run of the season -- a scorched 1-0 fastball over the centerfield fence. The game was now tied 4-4.
That's when seniors Sunny Bowden, Rennie Orr and Katie Bell each came to the plate and hit three consecutive singles -- loading the bases. Coach Townsend then opted to substitute Bowden for HP's base-running specialist, junior Sarah Hall, who was now on third base and represented the winning run.
The next Lady Scot batter would be fellow junior Olivia Davis. With the Horn pitcher clearly rattled, she quickly fell behind 3-0 to Davis. The HP faithful were cheering wildly, enough so that Davis couldn’t determine that Coach Townsend had given her the take sign on her 3 ball and no strike count. Imagine Coach Townsend's surprise (and then relief) when Davis whacked the next pitch she saw, a fastball down the middle -- that Davis hit beyond the Horn shortstop and sharply enough that the field umpire who was situated close to the shortstop, couldn't get out of the way of the ball quickly enough, it hit him in the heel causing the ball to ricochet across the field. In the confusion, Sarah Hall trotted home with the winning run for Highland Park.
The wins this week were HP's 9th and 10th consecutive district victories and keep the Lady Scots undefeated in District 10-6A play at 10-0 -- guaranteeing them a spot in the post-season.
HP softball is away for their next game at Lake Highlands on 4/12, they then return home on 4/15 to play Mesquite High School on the Lady Scots’ ‘Y’ night.