CALEDONIA — Junior Gracie McCleskey has experienced good and bad moments playing softball for Caledonia High School.
The month of April is rolling out with some good times for McCleskey and the Lady Confederates. McCleskey had four hits Tuesday night to help Caledonia beat Cleveland 13-3 in Game 1 of the Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 4A best-of-three second-round playoff series.
The series will resume at 5 p.m. Thursday in Cleveland. Caledonia will have two chances to win one game to advance to the third round.
“I have been a part of the softball team since middle school, so I feel like I have been through it all,” McCleskey said. “The best things about the last two years is the closeness of the team. I think the closeness has really helped us keep things together. The last two years have really been different and been a lot of fun.”
Despite some early-season struggles, Caledonia coach Jonathan Jones always believed in his team, which improved to 13-13 thanks to the victory in the game that was shortened to six innings due to the mercy rule.
“Every practice, we break it down with Jackson,” Jones said. “Our goal is to play for the state championship. That should be every team’s goal. The whole season we were pointing toward peaking at the right time. There is little doubt we playing our best softball right now.”
Caledonia scored eight runs in the first inning. A series of trends were established in that at-bat — Caledonia was going to hit the ball hard (six hits in the inning, 15 total) and Cleveland was going to make errors (five in the inning, nine total).
“The first inning was really big,” said Caledonia senior catcher Cassie Obman, who had three hits. “I thought (Cleveland) really laid down after that inning. We punched them in the mouth first and they never recovered. When you are playing at home and you have a big crowd behind you, it is important to start strong. After that inning, everybody was able to take a deep breath.
“This game was really big for me. I have really been struggling the last couple of weeks. Fortunately, the bottom part of the lineup has really been hitting. In this game, when you go through the lineup in the first inning and almost everybody gets a hit, that sets a very good tone.
“Even if you have an inning or two where you don’t score, you still have that right mind-set you got from the first time batting around.”
Jones said his squad hung its hat on stellar defense as it waited for the offense to kick into gear.
“We are as good a defensive team as there is in the state,” Jones said. “I think that has really bailed us out in some games. We have an eighth-grader (Carlee Dale) in the circle. It changes everything when you have total confidence that all of the players behind you are going to make plays.”
Obman is one of three seniors on the team. She has spent extra time with Dale helping her grow and develop in the circle.
“I am so proud of her,” Obman said. “She is asked to step up and get juniors and seniors out. Coach is right about the defense. We really take pride in being great on defense. We aren’t going to give up extra outs. You saw in this game how important it is just to make the routine plays. Making those plays helped us keep a big lead.”
Caledonia is a perennial playoff contender. Jones said the Lady Confederates have taken a different approach to meeting the challenge of blending the new with the old.
“We have a lot of experience and a lot of youth, too,” Jones said. “It’s all eighth-graders on the mound. We have a junior at shortstop (McCleskey) and a junior at second base (Makayla Taylor), so we have some experience up the middle. One senior (Ainsley Cullum) is hurt, so that leaves only (Obman and first baseman Stephanie Wilkes) as the only seniors playing on a regular basis. They are providing huge leadership.
“Our youth has shown through in some games. However, we are running the bases well, hitting the ball well, and making all of the plays on defense. If we keep that up, we can go a long way.”
Lauren Duckworth, Landri Brown, and Hope Harbin had two hits for the Lady Confederates
Obman shares Jones’ enthusiasm about the team’s potential to make a deep postseason run.
“Hopefully, we can keep this up,” Obman said. “We are playing well. We want to see how far we can get.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Scott Walters on Twitter @dispatchscott
Scott was sports editor for The Dispatch.
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