Lady Trojans no-hit by West Ridge in season-ending loss
BLOUNTVILLE — Host West Ridge scored all its runs in two big innings Friday night and got its second perfect game pitching performance of the tournament in a 12-0 victory that ended the season for Morristown West in the District 1-4A Softball Tournament.
The Lady Wolves banged out six hits in the first inning and scored seven times and then took advantage of six Lady Trojans errors in the fourth for five more in the five-innings win.
In Friday’s other game, Science Hill edged Dobyns-Bennett, 4-3, to move into the finals and lock up a Region 1 Tournament berth. West Ridge and Dobyns-Bennett played Monday night for the other spot in the finals and the other spot in the region.
Miranda Henley didn’t allow West a base runner to become the second Lady Wolves pitcher to turn that trick in the tourney after Zoey Blair did it in a threeinning win over East on Wednesday.
West Ridge upped its record to 21-16 while the Lady Trojans closed with a 23-12 worksheet.
Caydence Spears and Nila Horne had two hits each to lead West Ridge at the plate with Spears and Kat Hortenstine having doubles.
West coach Chad Parker’s team had defeated the Lady Wolves twice in the regular season and he said that was why he left losing pitcher Kara Dyke on the mound despite the rough start.
“We had scored 10 on them the first time, and I kept thinking if we can get out of it with just a couple more runs, we’ll be all right,” he said. “Obviously, I was wrong, but I thought we would score some runs.
“But we didn’t even have a runner. We hit the ball hard part of the time and every time we did it was right at somebody and they made the plays.”
He went on to say, “I don’t know what happened to us in the fourth inning defensively. I’m pretty sure we hadn’t made that many errors in a game, let alone in an inning. We threw the ball around some and just didn’t make plays a couple more.”
Parker is already looking forward to next season. “But we don’t have any seniors, so we’ll return every player next season and should be one of the favorites.
“Tonight wasn’t what we wanted, but I’m proud of the girls. We’ve had a good season with 23 wins.”
Henley struck out eight in her pitching gem, with seven of those coming the first time through the batting order.
In the top of the first, Dyke got the first batter out before Spears and Teagan Tipton had singles. A walk to Lacy Fugate loaded the sacks and another base on balls to Kami Clark scored the only run the Lady Wolves really needed.
But West Ridge wasn’t through Kaylee Hicks and Henley and a groundout pushed the margin to 7-0, The Lady Trojans only put the ball in play twice in the first three innings and one of those was a foul out to the catcher behind home plate.
Dyke settled down and faced only six batters in the next two innings before the wheels came off on defense.
Hortenstine led off the fourth with a double and Horne followed with an infield hit that was thrown away at first. A bad throw to third and another into left field allowed both runs to score, totaling three errors on one ground ball.
Spears had a hit and MacKenzie Lucky came to the mound in relief. But three more errors in the frame produced three more runs and it was 12-0.
The Lady Trojans hit the ball hard in their half of the fourth as Eva Boudier lined out to left field and Dyke hit a hard line drive to the shortstop but the Lady Wolves handled each opportunity flawlessly.
In the seventh, West went down on a groundout, a pop-up to short and another foulout to the catcher.




