Seven games in four days makes for a very busy week of fast-pitch softball.
This is how the Indianola Academy Lady Colonels’ 2018 season has opened and that busy trend is scheduled to continue on this upcoming week.
Answering the challenge with mostly victories, the Lady Colonels have begun their season with a 5-2 record, a mark which includes a second- place finish in last Saturday’s Winona Christian School Tournament.
Most recently the Lady Colonels also played their first home game of the season Monday night when Carroll Academy came to town and suffered a 9-3 loss to the IA squad.
Meanwhile, Wednesday night’s schedule had Manchester Academy of Yazoo City visiting IA for another non-district clash. Results of that contest were unavailable at press-time.
Looking ahead, this week’s action includes a large tournament to be played at Chism Park this Saturday as the Lady Colonels march through their schedule.
Also included in this coming week’s play are a pair of District 1-AAA matchups.
As for their upcoming Chism Park tournament action this Saturday, the Lady Colonels’ first game of the tournament will be an 8 a.m. contest versus Carroll Academy. Please see related story in the Enterprise-Tocsin for additional tournament details.
This tournament will also serve as IA Head Coach Patrick Davis’ squad’s final tune-up prior to beginning a District 1AAA portion of their schedule next week.
For on Monday, Lee Academy of Clarksdale will come to Chism Park to take on IA with first pitch of the varsity game to be thrown at 6 p.m.
Roughly 24 hours later, the IA girls will be in Grenada for another district clash; on this occasion playing the Kirk Academy Raiderettes. Again, varsity game time is slated for 6 p.m.
In their abundance of games played this past weekend, the Lady Colonels’ tournament action at Winona Christian School last Saturday yielded three wins and two losses.
The IA squad opened their play early Saturday morning with a 5-3 decision over Carroll Academy which was followed by a 3-0 loss to Central Holmes Christian Academy of Lexington.
The Lady Trojans would actually hand the Lady Colonels both of their tournament losses by late Saturday night after a 6-0 victory over IA in the tournament championship game.
Central Holmes Christian Academy is led by pitcher McKenna Polk, a hard-throwing right-handed pitcher who is expected to take her softball talents to defending national champion Jones Junior College of Ellisville next fall.
Meanwhile, the Lady Colonels sandwiched a pair of wins between their two losses in order to reach the day’s championship game.
The first of these victories was a 9-1 decision over Kirk Academy which was immediately followed by a 6-4 defeat of Winston Academy of Louisville.
Pitching proved to be solid for the Lady Colonels in this tournament as Mary Linton Davis, Katie Ann Page, and Jillian Roberts flooded the zone with strikes.
The end result was a collective performance which yielded only one base on balls throughout the tournament; the end result being each pitcher picking up at least one win in the pitcher’s circle.
At the plate, Roberts led the way with seven singles in 11 at bats while driving in six runs.
Close behind was sophomore Lily Putnam, whose time in the batter’s box accumulated six hits; a performance which included a triple and five RBIs during a dozen plate appearances.
Strong offense was also received from Anna Berry Stevens (five hits including a triple), and Mallory Price (three hits, one double, 4 RBIs).
Last Friday night the Lady Colonels began their 2018 season on the road and in fine fashion with a 19-2 thrashing of Sharkey-Issaquena Academy in Rolling Fork.
Striking for nine hits in the three inning game, IA was led by Stevens’ double and single as well as Roberts’ pair of singles.
On the mound, Page, Roberts, and Davis combined to limit the SIA squad to only one hit in the contest while striking out six hitters.
