After grabbing an early lead, some late fireworks from junior Jessie Daniels and a solid effort in the circle from junior Raylee Roby helped Daviess County defeat Estill County 3-0 to advance to the state quarterfinals.
The Lady Panthers had gotten themselves in a little bit of trouble right away in the first, as a single and a pop-up near home fell and almost stayed fair to bring in a run with two outs. However, junior Raylee Roby’s rise ball helped her strikeout senior Emma Winkle to head into the bottom half of the inning tied at 0-0.
Daviess County had some early offensive opportunities themselves in the first, putting runners on the corners with one down thanks to a one-out double from senior Hattie Newman and infield single from Millie Roberts. But Winkle was able to recover, striking out seniors Jessie Daniels and Katie Mewes to send the game into the second.
It wasn’t until the bottom of the second that the Lady Panthers were able to get on the board, starting with junior Kayley Payne beating an unorthodox shift by tripling to left center to lead off the inning. Eight grader Annie Newman sent one to right the two at-bats later and the right fielder dove and missed.
Annie chugged all the way to third and was heading for an inside-the-park home run, but she tripped and fell before returning to third. However, she had given Daviess County the first run and lead of the game at 1-0.
The Lady Panthers could’ve expanded on their lead with one down in the inning, but seniors Sophie Simone and Kinsey Vergason struck out to strand Annie at third and leave the game at 1-0 going into the third inning. The game then hit a stalemate, as Winkle and Roby had total control of the game from the circle.
Roby had kept the Lady Engineers scoreless through five, surrendering two hits, a walk and striking out five. Winkle had allowed the one earned run on five hits, had walked none and struck out 10 through five.
Estill County was able to get to Roby in the top of the sixth, finding themselves with runners in scoring position and two outs after a pair of singles and a passed ball. But Roby was able to buckle back in, getting a massive punch out against senior Neesa West to keep the lead at 1-0 going into the bottom half of the inning.
“We were still going to try and go inside on her, at least one more time,” Head Coach John Biggs said. “And then if that didn’t work, we were gonna try to go away. So we just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. Really, Millie initiated that conversation with Raylee, I just wanted to make sure I was on their page.”
Daviess County looked to take advantage of its momentum right away, getting a leadoff double from Roberts. Daniels came up next and despite striking in both of her previous at-bats, she cranked one over the fence in left center to make it a 3-0 ballgame.
Having struggled prior to her third at-bat, Daniels got some advice on how to fix her swing from a former teammate that helped her hit the long ball.
“Shoutout to Abby Newman, because right before my third at-bat she walks up to me and she’s like ‘you’re under everything,’” Daniels said. “I was like ‘ok cool,’ so I wasn’t under that pitch.”
This home run gave Roby plenty of run support and momentum on the Lady Panthers side, helping shut down the Lady Engineers in the top of the seventh to secure their spot in the state quarterfinals with a 3-0 win.
Roby closed out the game allowing just four hits, walking one and striking out seven in the complete-game victory. Biggs was thrilled with how she handled adversity and trusted her defense.
“I thought Raylee did a good job,” Biggs said. “She may not have been at her best today, but she’s efficient enough and we made all the plays we needed them to make.”
Winkle also had a very strong performance for Estill County, allowing three earned runs on seven hits, to go with no walks and 11 strikeouts through six innings. It took awhile for Daviess County to crack Winkle and Biggs attributed that to her ability to mix locations well.
“Their pitcher did a really nice job of keeping us off-balance,” Biggs said. “She was throwing it in all different quadrants. There wasn’t a whole lot of changeups or off-speed stuff, but she did a good job of getting ahead early and making us chase… I felt like that the more quality at-bats that we had, the more times we got to see her, the more times we got to turn our lineup over, that our big hitters are going to come up with a big hit.”
It was Daniels who led the way at the plate with the late two-run bomb, while Annie chipped in an RBI on the day with her near inside-the-park home run. Daniels said getting this first win out of the way is a major relief and has the Lady Panthers excited for their next game.
“It’s great,” Daniels said. “I think winning this game has given us a lot of confidence, because we were like let’s just get past semi-state and we’re just getting better as a team. Moving forward in the tournament is going to give us more and more confidence.”
Daviess County advances to the quarterfinals with a 31-5 overall record, as they are set to take on a familiar foe in Ballard Memorial. Having defeated them in state last season, Biggs and company know that they will want revenge and will have to be extremely prepared to continue to survive and advance.
“We’re not even going to worry about softball tomorrow,” Biggs said. “Then we’re going to come back on Monday and we’re going to devise a gameplan. They’re good. There is no doubt, they’re good and I’m sure there’s some motivation on their part. We told them we need to have a good week of practice and we’ll devise a gameplan of how we’re going to approach things and then we’ll see what happens.”
