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NEWPORT – Grainger head softball coach Ben Williford has said all season when his team puts together a complete game, they can beat anyone. That happened on Friday and produced the biggest win of the season for the Lady Grizzlies.

Williford’s team exploded for six runs in the top of the fifth inning and went on to shock top-seeded Cocke County 7-2 on the Lady Red’s home field. Brooklyn Copley had the complete-game victory in the circle as she gave up only one earned run, two walks and struck out five Cocke County batters. At the plate, she added a triple. The Lady Red led 1-0 going into the fifth inning but that was when Grainger came alive. Copley scored on a Jaylee Hayes single and she later scored on a sacrifice by Alison Byrd. Destanee Davis smacked a two-run double to center field and came home on the next batter as Suzanne Barker singled to center. Barker came home on a passed ball to extend the Lady Grizz lead to 6-1.

Grainger added an insurance run in the top of the sixth when Cierstin Phifer scored on an error. Shakyra Reed had an inside the park homerun for Cocke County in the bottom of the seventh but the Lady Grizzlies would allowe them to get no closer in the 7-2 triumph. Grainger will take on second-seeded Greeneville on Monday night at 7 p.m. after the Lady Greene Devils beat Claiborne 5-1 Friday. Grainger will be riding a four-game winning streak into the game against Greeneville.

Baseball:

Greeneville 12,

Grainger 4

GREENEVILLE – Grainger was able to get to Greeneville pitcher Carson Quillen with three runs in third inning but after that, Quillen was locked in and it was lights out.

Quillen silenced the Grizzlies’ bats in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings as he retired nine batters in a row and reliever Will Harmon struck out the side in the seventh to make it 12 straight outs as the Greene Devils downed Grainger 12-4 Friday night in the district tournament semi-final. Quillen wasn’t overpowering as he only recorded four strikeouts on the day but he bounced back from a rough inning and didn’t have any walks or hits the rest of the way. Grainger head coach Garrett Yates said his team did about as well as they could against Greeneville’s star hurler. “Carson is a really good pitcher and I was actually pretty happy with what we did offensively. Coming into tonight he had like a 0.3 ERA or something similar so that shows he’s really good. We were able to get several barrels on him but there at the end, they weren’t finding the ground so all things considered, I pretty happy with it. Obviously, I would like to do better but everything we want to do is still on the table and on Saturday we get to go to work with Brady Smith on the mound and I feel pretty good about that.”

Grainger jumped out to an early lead when Kade Lucas led off the game with a single up the middle and he later scored on a sacrifice fly to center by Brayden Christian. Greeneville answered with three runs of their own in the home half of the opening inning with two of them coming on a costly error by the Grizzlies that allowed Parker Shipley and Colton Richards to score. A sacrifice fly by Richards in the second allowed Maddox Bishop to come around as the Greene Devils increased their lead to 4-1 but then the Grizzlies struck quickly. Lucas reached on a fielders’ choice, Jaxon Maxey got on via an error by the Devils and then Smith singled in Lucas for the RBI. After Christian’s double to left, Josh Walker picked up the RBI with a single to center that tied things up at 4-4.

That was it for the Grizzlies, however, as Quillen retired the next nine batters he faced in order and Harmon had three K’s in the seventh. On offense, the Greene Devils scored a run in the third on Bishop’s RBI single and then plated three runs in the fourth with the big hit being Richards’ double down the third base line. Four more runs came in the fifth when Richards struck again, picking up his third and fourth RBIs in the contest when he went to left field again to make it 12-4.