West Laurens returning to Columbus after late-inning rallies to sweep Adairsville

You never know much for sure, any given year, about your chances going into the GHSA fastpitch softball tournament. 

But West Laurens can rest assured that its offense will be capable of holding its own with any of the seven other state championship hopefuls it might face in Columbus next week. 

“No matter what, we can score runs,” said junior Peyton Crabb. “We can come back and beat these teams.” 

The Raiders’ bats proved their mettle by doing that twice to sweep No. 18 Adairsville in two wild ones Wednesday afternoon. 

They trailed by as big a number as five in the first, and six in the second, but rallied to get the last word in both shootouts, and advance as one of the state’s last eight teams standing for a seventh-straight season.  

West Laurens rode a four-run seventh inning to its 8-7 victory in the opener, and scored five of six difference-making runs in the sixth frame of the finale before holding off the Tigers in a final at-bat to win 11-10. 

Six errors and 10 walks on the day, along with some early missed opportunities, had them cutting it awful close at the end of games that very easily could have gone the other way, but the Raiders out-hit Adairsville by one in each contest, and a count of 21-19 over the series. 

“I felt like we could score runs,” said West Laurens head coach Mike Thompson. “We scored runs all year long, and I felt like we could score several. We just had to get some girls on base. We just had a hard time slowing them down tonight.” 

Though the Tigers were running wild early, the Raiders’ pitching staff was able to rein them in just enough to keep things within their lineup’s extensive striking distance. 

Crabb covered the bulk of the first 10 innings – a span of seven of the first, and the first two and change of game 2 – and made the best of 15 Adairsville hits, six walks and the defensive miscues that were scattered throughout (only nine of her 14 runs given up were earned). Audrie Edenfield and Demmie Moss tag-teamed the remainder.  

“It was rough,” Crabb said. “I did not pitch my best game, but I’m really glad that Demmie came in and was able to do what I couldn’t. She did amazing.” 

Two hits each for Chloe Hill and Madison Brookshire were among the Tigers’ nine that repeatedly had the opening-game deficit in danger of getting out of hand. 

Adairsville, after failing to close that one out, seemed to come back with even more firepower in game 2, as Ansley Powell and Paisley Rooks combined for five out of 10. 

Despite some steady responses, the Tigers scored runs in each of the first four innings to go up 4-0, 5-1, 7-3 and 9-3. 

West Laurens stayed in it by scoring one on a Crabb sac fly in the second, and two on Moss’ single in the third. 

But Powell and Ashlynn Durden would homer in innings 2 and 4 to undo all of that early progress at climbing back, also prompting Thompson’s move to change things up in the circle in the bottom of 3.  

“I told Peyton, one time when I went out and talked to her, this is the first time in, I don’t know, the last 20 games where she didn’t throw her best game,” Thompson said. “She didn’t have her good stuff, and the umpires did a good job. You had to throw it on the plate, and they had a good-hitting team. We managed to get some runners on and chip away, and we made some pitches when we needed to. And Demmie came in there right at the end.” 

Things got worse before they got better. Adairsville picked up two more in the fourth on Brookshire’s RBI single to make the score 9-3. 

The Raiders, at that point, were as far out of the lead as they’d been all day. But just like earlier, they weren’t ready to chalk this one up as a lost cause and turn focus to a potential game 3, and dug in to keep grinding at the plate, and in the field. 

Sure enough, the needed runs came little by little, starting in the top of the fifth inning. 

Chandler Malone worked a walk and scored on an error. Edenfield doubled. Brown singled to bring her in, and just like that, it was a four-run game. 

The entry of Moss – who hasn’t pitched a lot this season, but has some potent stuff – in the circle during the bottom of the inning helped turn momentum even more as the sophomore finally found some answers to slow down the pace of scoring, and shut out Adairsville in the fifth and sixth. 

“We had a break there, and I forget exactly what was happening. But we were still down 9-5, 9-6 or something, and Demmie was coming up, and I said something to her, I said, listen we’re gonna score right here, and you’re going to go out in that circle, and you’re going to shut it down,” Thompson said. “And she said yes sir, I’ve got it. That’s kind of what she did. It wasn’t pretty, but we got the job done.” 

“I was already thinking, I was like if I get put in, I’ve gotta do something to change this game,” Moss said. “We were kind of down, and I just wanted to pump us up. It was hard at first, but I was like I’m gonna get this team pumping again, and that’s what I did.” 

The five-run sixth inning surge unfolded in even more improbable fashion, with all the action except an early walk drawn by Ella Thompson taking place after Adairsville had recorded a second out. 

But a common thread from late in game 1 reemerged as walks, which numbered 14 for Adairsville starting pitchers in the series, began to stack up again as they did to prop the door open for West’s first memorable comeback of the day. 

“Everything we had seen and watched on them, their pitchers would get behind some, but they’d come back and throw strikes, so I felt like if we could draw some walks, we’d be fine,” Thompson said. “We’d get some runners on. I felt like we’d swing the bat.” 

Paisley Powell and Edenfield drew two more in a row, then Madison Brown came through with a one-run single to cut the Tigers’ lead to 9-6. 

Heidi Rickett, summoned in relief at this same point in the last inning of the opener, came back on to pitch for Rooks, but issued a fourth free pass of the inning to make the score 9-7, as Crabb stepped into the box with the bases loaded, and a chance to change the game with one swing. 

“I was just looking for whatever she gave me, anything close,” she said. “I was just trying to put the ball in play, get a run in.” 

Crabb didn’t settle for just one, instead clearing them off with a gapper to left to bring home the two in scoring position, as well as Moss, who slid home to beat the throw on an aggressive wave by Thompson to give West Laurens a 10-9 lead. 

Thompson, who said he had been strategic in signaling in some takes in advantage counts earlier in game 2, gave at least two batters who drew walks in the sequence a green light to swing away in three-ball counts, though none got carried away and stayed selective to keep the line moving, and wait on the perfect moment to strike that would come a few batters later. 

“I think that did help us get some runners on, and maybe it helped get us in a good hitters count. I told them several times, when you’re in a good hitters count, you’ve gotta go up there ready to hit right there. When you’re 3-1, 2-0, you’re offensive hitting, you’re not defensive hitting there. I think the walks and the patience at the plate helped a little bit, especially there at the end.” 

The Raiders got an insurance run in the seventh that turned out to be huge, as Allie Sahli beat it out of the box on a grounder, and rushed the Adairsville throw from shortstop just enough to get aboard on a bobbled catch at first. 

The senior stole second, and moved up to third on Ella Thompson’s well-executed ground ball to the right side in a two-strike count, before scoring on a Malone sacrifice fly. 

The Tigers cashed in an error to score with two outs on their last chance. 

Moss got Rooks swinging, and retired Durden on a shallow fly to right. But the third out was elusive, as Rickett singled up the middle, and Powell plopped a two-out pitch into shallow left to follow for an RBI. 

But the sophomore remained in command, even after getting behind Hynleigh Statham 2-0, as she went to the breaking ball to get an early swing on two pitches in a row to even the count. 

Ball three filled it up, but Moss stayed with the faithful curve it to get a whiff for strike three that ended the game. 

“That’s my best pitch and I was like I’m going with it,” Moss said. “Honestly, me and Coach Pollock and Kinsley (Moore) all worked just curve, curve, curve, curve. They weren’t touching my curve, and I was just like I’m gonna keep throwing it. No need to change the speed. Just keep throwing it. If they’re not touching it, they’re not touching it.” 

There was definitely about 14 innings’ worth of stress to let loose in the postgame celebration as Moss ran into the embrace of her catcher Moore, followed shortly by teammates from the field and dugout. 

Suddenly, all the earlier adversity in a game full of setbacks and misadventures, seemed a lot less significant than it did only a few moments before. 

And West Laurens players and coaches were all smiles again as they broke down another second-round series victory, and posed for a celebratory group photo to commemorate the moment. 

For the Raiders’ many underclassmen – Moss included – this’ll probably go down as the most hard-earned of several wins like this they’ve been a part of this year, and last. 

“It was one of the funnest, and one of the hardest, I’ll tell you that,” she said. 

Wild from the start… 

Adairsville didn’t make as quick a jump from the starting line, but opened as comfortable a lead in game 1 that it held pretty much the entire night. 

Two walks and an error gave the Tigers their first in the top of one, and three hits, a walk and an error scored four to put the Tigers up 5-0 in the third before the Raiders could get their bats going. 

West Laurens slowly chipped away, picking up two of its three in the fourth inning on an RBI double by Powell.

But nothing happened on three hits in the fifth and the sixth, putting it all on the Raiders’ last chance in the seventh, down 7-4 after Crabb set down the side 1-2-3 in the top half. 

The inning got off to a shaky start for Hill, who had pitched her way out of some earlier jams, but couldn’t escape this one after walks of Brown, Crabb and Maggie Shea Lord to load ’em up with nobody out. 

Sahli grounded out to score Brown and make it 7-5, then Thompson singled for two RBIs to tie. 

Malone’s base hit to left kept things moving, and forced an Adairsville pitching change that likewise wouldn’t reverse the course of the inning. 

Powell drew another free pass to refill the sacks, and Edenfield worked her count to 3-1 as Thompson came in to score the winning run on a passed ball. 

“I’m really proud of them,” Coach Thompson said. “I’m really proud of the way we swung the bats and made the plays when we had to. Our pitchers hanging in there, and doing what they had to do. We had to use all three tonight, but we got it done.” 

West Laurens (25-7, 6-2 region 3-AAAA) has overcome its inexperience in big ways this fall. But that question mark was tested in this series, and will be again as the Raiders play on this young team’s biggest stage so far next week. 

Were there any takeaways from these intense battles that can help them there?

“I don’t know if anything prepares you for Columbus,” Thompson said. “Every game hinges on one pitch and one hit, and it’s just such an incredible, great environment for high school kids. Hopefully this intense game tonight helps some, but when you get on that stage, man, unless you’ve played (there), it’s hard to mimic that. It’s just a great environment. Hopefully this prepares us a little bit.” 

West Laurens will play Ridgeland, out of Northwest Georgia, in its opener Wednesday evening. 

But what happens from there will be just as unpredictable as this series was, and each of the Raiders’ numerous trips to South Commons in the past two and a half decades. 

What’s always true will be again: There are a lot of great teams, and every one of them will have just as much a shot to get hot when it matters.  

“You never know what happens over there,” Thompson said. “The year we won it, everybody told everybody that nobody’s beating Whitewater. You’re not beating ’em. Everybody’s playing for second. And we went over there and Whitewater gets beat in game 1, and we roll right into the championship game and they had to beat us twice. You never know. I like the way we’re swinging the bat, we’ll go over there and compete, and see what happens.”