SOFTBALL: West Laurens battles back to walk off Friday wins, but takes consolation as Bluff brings end to tournament run

After falling to the secondary bracket with a loss to eventual state champion Heritage Thursday night, West Laurens ground out wins in elimination games against Pickens and Monroe Area on Friday to advance as one of the final three teams left standing in the GHSA state softball tournament. 

The Raiders would drop a 3-2 heartbreaker to Cherokee Bluff early Saturday to rule out chances of a second shot at the Generals in the finals, where the Bears were defeated by a run to finish as runner-up. 

But a power surge from their earliest victory Thursday carried over into both games of day 2, which West Laurens (31-5 overall) would walk off with home runs 5 and 6 of their trip in dramatic finishes to beat Pickens 13-4, and Monroe Area 7-6. 

The grand slam of Maggie Shea Lord put finishing touches on a six-inning run ruler in the early matchup. K.K. Wilson hit her second of the tourney to complete the Raiders’ remarkable three-inning comeback from a 6-0 hole to survive late that evening. 

Lord had one other hit in addition to the slam, singling to spark a four-run fourth inning that broke the Pickens game open as the Raiders almost doubled their existing lead of 5-0. 

Chandler Malone’s single, followed by a Jacely Hogan two-run homer (also her second of the week) put them up 2-0 in the first inning. The lead grew by three thanks to Malone’s second base hit, a Hogan single and RBIs by CheyAnn Phillips and Ava Collins. 

Malone drove in Lord for run No. 6 early in the fourth, but the rest of the West Laurens scoring came with two outs as Wilson singled to right, Phillips doubled to left and Collins and Demmie Moss reached base on errors.  

Some Pickens scoring in the succeeding frames necessitated a few more runs to put the game away. Those came in the bottom of the sixth as Collins got aboard, and Allie Sahli and Madison Brown singled to load the bases. 

Lord’s grand slam flew out to center for the winning runs. 

A lengthy wait between games led to a sluggish start against Monroe Area, which came out hot with four runs in the second inning and two more in the fourth to build a 6-0 lead. 

Things weren’t looking great until West Laurens got to work, and cut the deficit to just two with four runs in the fifth inning. 

Moss doubled to start it out, and eventually scored on a wild pitch, as Sahli and Hogan drew walks around a Lord single to re-load the bases. Wilson’s single cleared them off to make it a two-run game. 

The Raiders chipped away one more in the sixth on two errors and a Lord RBI single, though a third out left both the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position. 

But West Laurens had two more clutch hitters coming back around in the seventh, and quickly reeled off two big swings to steal the win as Hogan singled, and Wilson cranked a 2-2 pitch out to right center. 

The Raiders and Bluff traded a run each in the second inning of Saturday’s matchup. The Bears assumed a 3-1 lead in the third, cashing in on an error and walk to follow the double of Audrey Graham with Jaycee Archer’s sacrifice fly and an RBI by Lillie Diehl. 

West Laurens was only able to score one more in the bottom of the inning as Malone singled to drive in Brown for an unearned run. But Peyton Davis, who’d keep the Raiders silent the rest of the way, got a flyout and strikeout to end the chance with multiple runners on.