Lady Indians Heading Back to State Elite Eight

 

Emma Whitfield pitched seven shutout innings scattering three hits and striking out five, and added a home run in the 2nd inning to lead the Stephens County Indians to a 1-0 win over Chapel Hill High School Thursday night in the AAAA State Softball tournament in Douglasville.

With the win, the Lady Indians take the series two games to one and will now make a second straight trip to the AAAA Elite Eight next week in Columbus.

Whitfield’s 2nd inning home run gave the Lady Indians the lead early and she kept the Panthers off balance all night at the plate and off the bases as no Panther made it past first base all game.

Indians head coach Katie-Jo Gentry says this game had it all. “It was a great game. That is what we call true softball. Just going head to head for seven straight innings. It was great.”

Whitfield was coming off two games on Wednesday with ten and nine strikeouts. Though the strike out total was down in this game, Gentry says her location was outstanding. “Emma’s a great pitcher. She knows she has a great defense behind her and they came through, too. It was a whole team effort.”

Gentry says this team is special. “This is one of the hardest working bunches I’ve been around. They’ve got true grit. They don’t give up when the going gets hard. From the beginning we have talked about going through adversity, battling back, and this is exactly what these last two days have been. We proved to come out on top.”

The Lady Indians will face Northside of Columbus in their first game of the double elimination Elite Eight tournament next Thursday at 5:30 P.M. in Columbus. Northside eliminated Woodward Academy to advance.

Stephens County will be joined by Madison County from Region- 8 in the final eight. Madison County will face West Laurens next week. The region’s top seed Jefferson was eliminated by Northwest Whitfield on Thursday night.

The other matchups in the AAAA Softball Elite Eight include Marist vs. Perry, and Eastside vs. Northwest Whitfield.