With their district title hopes fleeting after a rough outing less than a day before, the Durant Lady Lion softball team responded Friday with a pivotal 3-1 league win at Collinsville.
That victory proved huge, snapping a four-game losing skid and improved the Lady Lions to 3-1 in district play and in a virtual dead heat with Tahlequah and Collinsville for first place.
Durant will be back on the road for the Bixby Tournament this weekend with the Lady Lions’ annual invitational just over a week away.
Freshman Emma Sherrer was exceptional in the pitching circle throughout the vital Collinsville victory, holding the district leaders to a single run on just three hits. She struck out two and walked one.
The host Lady Cardinals scored their run in the fourth inning to take the lead before Durant responded with a decisive three-run fifth stanza outburst that put the Lady Lions in front for good.
Anslee Morse led off the frame with a double down the rightfield line and Raelynn Clark followed with a run-scoring double of her own. Addi Pratt reached on a bunt single, and Lylith Harris picked up the go-ahead RBI on a well-executed squeeze bunt. Korbyn Robinson knocked in the final run with a single for one of her team-high two hits in the low scoring contest.
Clark, Pratt, Robinson, Sherrer, Rachel Spencer and Morse all tallied one hit apiece.
Coach Jimmie Wyrick’s club started the week with a tough 8-6 loss to Tishomingo in the home opener and then fell to perennial power Tahlequah, 10-0, in the start of the important two-day road trip.
Facing a solid Tishomingo squad, the Lady Lions dropped a slugfest despite posting a season-high 16 hits in the contest. Durant plated three runs in the final frame but came up just short in the comeback bid.
Sherrer had a sensational game at the plate, pacing the offensive onslaught with four hits including a double. Pratt added two doubles with Ajonay Samuel, Petty, Robinson, Spencer and Brynn Ritenour all finishing with two hits.
Things didn’t go nearly as well on the Tahlequah trip as the Lady Tigers erupted for eight runs in the fifth inning to break open a close contest en route to the run rule.
Durant tallied only five hits in that outing, led by two singles from Robinson. Pratt, Sherrer and Kenzee Petty ended with one apiece.
