BLYTHEWOOD – The Blythewood softball team came close to knocking off Clover Friday night. Once again, the Blue Eagles came out on top, this time with a 3-run eighth inning to win 8-5 at Bengals Park.
Clover (9-3, 4-1), has beat Blythewood three times before the Bengals joined Region 3-5A in 2022 and four times since then.
“I think what’s so frustrating right here with Clover is we’re one run short, two runs short each time we play them, with the exception of today,” Blythewood head coach Jordan Atkinson said. “Every time for the last couple of years, one play here and there is the difference.”
In this case, Blythewood held a 3-0 lead in the first inning, but Clover eventually held a 5-4 advantage on the Bengals going into the bottom of the seventh. In that inning Blythewood came up (12-4, 5-3) with a clutch run to send the game into extra innings.
With two out, the Blue Eagles centerfielder dropped Josie Smythe’s pop fly and the Winthrop University commit wound up at second base. Smythe’s pinch runner, Molly Wolf, scored the tying run on Ashley Duncan’s fly ball that bounced off the rightfield fence.
Duncan tried to stretch her hit into a double but was tagged out at second for the final out.
With the game tied at 5, Clover came to bat in the eighth inning and went straight to work to secure a win. Bella Familia led off the inning with a single and Hunter Hoffman slammed a 3-2 pitch over the centerfield fence to put the Blue Eagles up 7-5.
Emilee Lessmeister reached base on a single, moved to second and third on back-to-back sacrifice bunts, and scored the eighth run when Blythewood misfielded Maddie Bruining’s infield grounder.
“We got runners on but we still didn’t capitalize when we needed to,” Atkinson said. “We played well enough to win, we just didn’t.”
Blythewood jumped to a 3-0 lead in the first inning.
Neilah Browne drew a leadoff walk, moved to second when M Ford reached on an error, took third on a passed ball as Maya Van Zyl batted, and scored when Van Zyl hit into a fielder’s choice.
Smythe then came to bat with one out and slammed a 3-2 pitch over the centerfield fence for a 2-run home run.
Ashley Duncan singled, but Keeley Hughes grounded out and Z Rhodes struck out to end the inning.
Clover answered with two runs in the second inning, a run in the third, and a run in the fourth to take a 4-3 lead.
In the bottom of the fourth, Raygan Segars led off with a double and Browne singled to leftfield to drive in Segars to tie the game at 4.
The Blue Eagles made it 5-4 in the top of the sixth when Lessmeister, who led the inning off with a single, scored on a wild pitch with one out. Gabby Badillo popped out and Maddie Bruining flied out to retire the side and set up one last Blythewood surge.
At Rock Hill Tuesday, Blythewood scored four runs in the fourth and five more in the sixth en route to a 14-0 win in six innings.
The Bengals are currently in third place behind region leader Nation Ford and second-place Clover. Blythewood played host to the Falcons Wednesday and plays Spring Valley Friday.
“We’re still in the driver’s seat. We can still finish pretty high. Losing twice to Clover in pretty close games, that really sucks, and we didn’t play Nation Ford well at Nation Ford, so we’re looking forward to getting an opportunity to give them a better game.”
Friday
Clover – 0-2-1-1-0-1-0-3 – 8, 10, 3
Blythewood – 3-0-0-1-0-0-1-0 – 5, 8, 4
WP: Bella Familia
Hitters – Neilah Browne 2-3. Ashley Duncan 2-4. Josie Smythe HR, 2 RBI. Keeley Hughes 2B. Raygan Segars 2B.
Tuesday
Blythewood – 1-0-2-4-2-5 – 14, 13, 0
Rock Hill – 0-0-0-0-0-0 – 0, 5, 0
WP: Lily Zell
Hitters: B – Makalah Ford 2-3, 3 RBI. Maya Van Zyl 2-2, 2B, 2 RBI. Josie Smythe 2-3, 2B 3 RBI. Keeley Hughes 2-4, 2B. R Segars 2-4, 2B(2). R Weizinger 2B, 2 RBI. Neilah Browne 2B.