East Laurens eases past Social Circle in first round of GHSA softball playoffs

Thirteen was the lucky number for East Laurens Monday in its sweep of Social Circle to advance from the first round of the GHSA softball playoffs. 

Not only did the Falcons score a baker’s dozen in each game, and capitalize on the same number of walks and errors over the series, but pitcher DeAndrea Lowther also struck out – you guessed it! – 13 batters over 10 innings of the doubleheader. 

They faced some stress at points in the set of games, but none that six hits in each, along with a combined seven stolen bases, couldn’t overcome. 

“Both games, I thought, were a total team effort,” East Laurens head coach Danielle Lowther said. “We were more disciplined at the plate, and our defense was solid for the most part.” 

The Falcons will go on the road next week to challenge No. 6 Berrien, as they vie to clinch a spot in Columbus at the GHSA tournament for a second time in three seasons. 

Offensive contributions, and patient at-bats, came from everywhere in the East Laurens order.

But the red-hot bat of Avery Smith, less than a week following her two heroic sixth-inning RBIs that helped deliver her team a region championship-clinching victory at Vidalia, came in clutch for the Falcons again as the sophomore went 4-for-7 and drove in five runs on the afternoon. 

Lowther and Olivea Jackson added a hit in both contests, and the rest were scattered here and there for Amiya O’Neal, Jayden Foskey, Jordan Kimsey and McKinley Canady. 

All combined to drive in six runs in the opener, then 12 in the finale. 

“Avery Smith had a really big night hitting, along with several others,” Coach Lowther said. 

For Social Circle, walks were too recurrent to keep either game close for long. The visiting Redskins also committed six errors in the first and seven in the second that did just as much to keep the bases well-stocked with runners. 

East Laurens kept fielding and throwing issues to a comparative minimum, with just four errors total, three of them in a second game that was a bit too close for comfort in the early going. 

Social threw separate starters in the two games, and waited until the second to go with presumed No. 1 Selah Adams, who came out firing with some heat that the Falcons weren’t able to square up consistently. 

She wound up giving up only two hits, and struck out six, though five walks opened the door to some scoring opportunities that eventually came to fruition. 

“The second game, I thought we lost focus and relaxed for a little bit because of how the first game played out,” Lowther said. “Social Circle put in the pitcher from my scouting reports that had been the main pitcher for them this season, and we had to adjust. It was a total team effort, from the starters, to our baserunners, to the teammates that cheered in the dugout.” 

Both teams loaded the bases and scored a run in the opening inning, East Laurens on Jayden Foskey’s infield single, and Circle as Zoey Dotson dove across the plate to beat the Falcons’ speedy recovery on a wild pitch in the bottom half. 

The Redskins went back to the well in the following at-bat, as Reagan Biggs broke for the plate in an effort to take the lead. But this time, the Lowther fastball rebounded hard from the backstop for East’s Reagan Sasser to collect, and tag her out easily, to end the inning. 

Both pitchers worked around remaining trouble to keep things scoreless through the second and third. But walks and errors began piling up for the visitors beginning in the fourth, when the Falcons finally scored three to re-take the lead, and Adams would be relieved by Baylee Williams, who went on to issue six more walks. 

East added two in the fifth and sixth, and Social Circle answered with only one run, before a five-run seventh inning to top things off.

The Redskins had six hits off of Lowther, who struck out and walked five. Sasser had two RBIs. 

Cara Ann Gee and Williams combined to cover the Redskins’ three innings of game 1, which ended with their fourth-inning at-bat after East – on another six hits – collected its runs in chunks of five, seven and one by frame to build its needed 12-run margin. 

The pair of hurlers walked only two, but errors made only five of the Falcons’ runs earned. 

Lowther held Social Circle to two hits and struck out eight, with only one walk. 

The first two of East’s second-round series will once again be a Monday-afternoon affair, with projected start times of 4:30 and 6:30 for the Falcons early next week in Nashville.