Lady Blues battle back to take down Stephenville
Travis Martinez
sports@grahamleader.com
For the second consecutive week, the Graham Lady Blues softball team battled through adversity to come away with a series win in the playoffs.
The team dropped the series opener to Stephenville on Thursday, but bounced back to win the next two games and come away with the 2-1 series win and the area championship.
After struggling in Game 1 against Honey Bees' star pitcher Julia Flores, the Lady Blues bats busted out 15 hits and 13 runs over the final two games.
Graham (25-9) sophomore pitcher Emma Southerland helped fuel the offense by posting zero's on the scoreboard for much of the series. The sophomore allowed just five earned runs in the three games combined with 29 strikeouts.
The Lady Blues now turn their attention to the red-hot Venus Lady Bulldogs. Venus (17-7-1) is in the Regional Quarterfinals for the first time in school history. After falling to Midlothian Heritage 11-4 on March 23, the squad has posted 11 straight wins.
A big reason for the success has been the pitcher Kaylee Davis. Davis has accounted for 275 strikeouts and allowed just 19 earned runs on the year, all while yielding a .367 batting average. The Lady Bulldogs are led by Alex Jasso's .433 average with 20 RBI.
Davis helped lead Venus to a bi-district win over Kennedale in a one-game playoff by collecting 16 punchouts in an 8-1 win.
It will be a good test for the Lady Blues at the plate with Graham having four players with at least 20 hits and 20 runs batted in on the season.
The best-of-3 series kicks off Thursday with Game 1 beginning at 6 p.m. Thursday at Aledo with Game 2 and possibly Game 3 both on Saturday.
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