Varsity Girls Bring Home Second at State

The Lady Eagles softball season has come to an end again with tears falling and the girls coming up short in what they had been working for so hard.   

The Lady Eagles easily made it through districts, though in the first round against Albany, they went scoreless until the fifth inning.  Finally the Lady Eagles got on a roll and ended up winning 11-1. The next game was the championship against Stanberry, a team they'd played in the district championship last year. Jefferson got on top quick and held their lead.  The final score was 8-0, with the Lady Eagles taking districts once again.

   The next round was the sectional game held at Jefferson against the Princeton Tigers.  The game was postponed about thirty minutes because of rain.  Once they got on the field, the Lady Eagles made that game a quick one,  winning 11-1 in six innings.

   In the quarter finals, the girls played one of their biggest rivals, King City.  The game was very scoreless until the fifth inning, when the Lady Eagles broke it open, scoring five runs.  That big inning was the turning point, as the final score was 5-0 and the Lady Eagles  were headed to state. 

  The  final four was in Springfield for the second year in a row.  This year they played Harrisburg in the semi-final game.  The Lady Eagles had a lot of errors, and the lead switched back and forth. In the first, Allie Meyer scored, but Harrisburg came right back with three runs in the second. Jefferson retook the lead in their half of the inning, getting three runs and going up 4-3. Harrisburg answered with another run in the third, tying the game at 4-4.  But Jefferson wanted it more and kept the bats hot, scoring twice more and winning 6-4.  

The Lady Eagles then moved on to the finals.  This year they played St. Elizabeth.  The championships were held on the big stadium field.  The Hornets put across the first runs of the game, scoring two in the third inning. They scored again in the fourth, making their lead 3-0.  The Lady  Eagles battled and battled but  were down 4-0 after St. Elizabeth's scored again in the fifth.  In their half of the fifth, Gina Schieber was walked and then Kristina Bliley bunted. They made an error, which resulted in runners on first and second.  Ashley Chor came up to bat, and with two out, she hit a line-drive double to centerfield to score both of them making the game 4-2.  St. Elizabeth's scored once more in the seventh, but the Lady Eagles just couldn’t get any more hits and ended up losing 5-2.

The girls fought hard all season to return to state, and they should be proud of their efforts.