Lady Dragons turn up the heat

by Jeremy Knight, Special Correspondent
Published: April 17, 2008

On Wednesday April 9, the William Monroe Softball team hosted the Madison Mountaineers. In the first game between the two teams, Madison pulled out a close victory with a game winning base hit in the bottom of the seventh.
Monroe came into this game looking to avenge that loss earlier in the season, and they looked to improve their season record, which was sitting at just one win thus far.
The first inning started off with a bang for the Lady Dragons. With one out in the inning, two back-to-back walks by Taylor Collier and Melanie Lamb had the Dragons in business.
After a fielders choice made the second out, Samantha Lawson came up with a triple to centerfield, scoring Collier and Bethany Leake.
Madison came right back in the second inning with a lead off single that would later score on a one-out- double to left field. But the Mountaineers would only get one run as the Monroe pitcher, Taylor Collier, got a ground out and a fly out to end the threat.
At the end of the first two innings, the lead was just 2-1 in favor of the Dragons.
Monroe would add to that lead in the bottom of the third inning. With two outs, three singles in a row by Lamb, Leake and Lawson gave the Dragons a 3-1 lead.
This was Lawson’s third rbi of the game as she was providing all of the runs for Monroe. “Everyone including myself was making contact at the plate,” said Lawson.
The Dragons would threaten again in the bottom of the fourth. Following a walk and a sacrifice bunt, they ran themselves out of a possible run, as Kate Puryear was caught stealing at third base.
Once again in the sixth inning, Monroe was threatening to put the game out of reach. Back-to-back singles by Lawson and Katelyn Roach had runners on first and second with just one out.
Jessica Morris would also walk to load the bases, but two Dragon strikeouts ended any scoring opportunity they had.
Behind great pitching and good defensive play, the Mountaineers were unable to get any offense going. They were able to get only few and sporadic hits throughout the game.
Finally in the top of the seventh inning, Madison put them in a scoring opportunity. With two outs, a walk and a single to right field had the Mountaineers in good position.
But a pickoff play --then turned into a run down—ended the game as the Madison base runner was tagged out for the third and final out of the game.
When it was all said and done, the final score was 3-1 in favor of Monroe.
Leading the Dragons in this one was Lawson with three hits and all three rbi’s in the game. Lamb, Leake, and Roach all added a hit of their own.
Coach Salita Sullivan said, “We had a nice win, finally. We are starting to come around as a team.”
Coach also commented, “Taylor Collier pitched a great game. We had very good intensity throughout the game.”
With the win, Monroe improved to 2-4 and 0-1 in the district.
On Thursday, April 10, the team beat Western Albemarle, 10-1; on Saturday, they lost to Page, 5-2; and on Monday, April 14, the Lady Dragons edged past Monticello, 5-4