Heading into the 2015 softball season, the last time the Hidden Valley seniors had enjoyed a win over Southwest County rival Cave Spring was when they were freshmen.
Thursday afternoon at the Knights softball complex, the Titan girls completed the regular sweep over Cave Spring with a 7-5 come-from-behind win, putting a damper on Senior Day for six Cave Spring seniors.
Overcoming a pair of home runs from Cave Spring slugger Kinsey Overfelt, Hidden Valley battled back with runs in four straight innings to put an encore performance on the 9-8 extra-inning win they had pulled off over the Knights in April.
“These seniors came to play,” Hidden Valley head coach Nathan Hunt said after the Titans’ post-game celebration. Hunt had missed the earlier Titan win when his airplane connection in Newark, New Jersey had caused a late return to Roanoke.
For a while Thursday, it looked like Overfelt’s bat would be enough to carry Cave Spring.
After Pami White reached on an error and Kristen Bradshaw beat out an infield single in the bottom of the second, Overfelt launched a homer to deep left that pushed Cave Spring to the early 3-0 lead.
Hidden Valley responded in the top of the third after walks to Jordan Johnson and Sidney Agee were followed by a double from Brooke Seale that scored two runs after a wild hop off the infield lip on the throw to third base.
The Titans added two more runs in the fourth after consecutive one-out singles by Julia Nelson, Mary Walters and Johnson loaded the bases. Madi Cupp followed with a 2-run bloop single that put Hidden Valley up 4-3.
Cave Spring retook the lead in the bottom half of the fourth. A walk to Bradshaw led to Overfelt’s second homer in as many plate appearances when her shot fell just inside the left field foul pole, putting the Knights ahead 5-4.
Cave Spring pitcher Cassi Parulis replaced Knight starter Abby Beatty in the circle to begin the fifth, and Hidden tied things at five after Agee singled, stole second, went to third on a wild pitch and scored on an infield ground out.
The Titans got the game winning runs in the sixth with plenty of help from the Knights. Walks to Walters and Cupp set the table and Agee’s single to left plated the go-ahead run. Seale followed with a walk to load the bases and Kiana Cook drew a base on balls to force in the seventh Hidden Valley run.
Cave Spring missed a golden opportunity to make things interesting in their half of the sixth when Bradshaw opened with a double. But, Overfelt came up a few feet short of her third homer on a fly out to left, and Cave Spring’s pinch runner was gunned down trying to reach third on the tag-up.
“That out at third was huge,” Hunt noted. “Cave Spring was ready to make it a close game. We did’t give her (Overfelt) a good pitch the third time and got the fly out.”
Beatty returned to the circle in the seventh, retiring the Titans in order. But, Nelson matched the effort in the bottom of the inning, getting two fly balls and a grounder to pick up the complete-game win.
“Cave Spring is a very tough team,” Nelson said. “My back started hurting midway though the game, so the pitches they were seeing in the first four innings were different in the last three.”
“It was Senior Day and our heads weren’t where they needed to be,” Cave Spring head coach Nick Sharp noted afterward. “We have some big hitters on this team and they didn’t execute today. When Cassi came in to pitch in the fifth, she wasn’t hitting her spots and she told us she was having trouble. It was unfortunate, but everyone starts the playoffs on Monday 0-0.”
– Bill Turner
