Sara Kate Thompson leapt back from the pitch headed for her ankles, then heard a voice from the on-deck circle.
“Hey,” Heritage Academy senior teammate Madison Tipton told Thompson, “let it hit you.”
Thompson didn’t need the free base — she ripped a single into left field — but Tipton’s joking advice might have been a sound strategy for the Patriots against dangerous Leake Academy pitcher Lynleigh Burt in Tuesday’s game in Columbus.
Burt kept Heritage Academy to just two runs, Leake scored plenty of its own, and the Patriots fell to 1-3 on the season with a 13-2 run-rule loss on Tuesday.
“We just couldn’t connect,” Heritage Academy coach Heidi Matthews said. “That’s all it was.”
The Pats’ first run came right after Thompson’s brush with a Burt pitch, as Leake’s right fielder lost Tipton’s subsequent fly ball in the sun and let it drop. Their second was too little, too late — an RBI single by pitcher McKenzie Rhett one out before the game was called on the 10-run mercy rule after five innings.
But overall, against a Leake team that won the 2018 MAIS Class 3A title, Matthews said her team delivered a solid performance and has kept getting better since a 23-11 loss in a July 31 season opener against Kemper Academy.
“They are 110 percent improved from Day 1 to now, and they’re going to continue to improve,” Matthews said.
But there’s still plenty to work on, including defensive fundamentals like hitting the cutoff man, which cost the Pats several extra bases — and, ultimately, Leake runs — in the contest.
“There’s certain things we’ve just got to tweak and keep getting better at,” Matthews said.
The Rebels scored three runs in the first inning, with two coming on a single by first baseman Caroline Jackson. Third baseman Miley Billie had a two-RBI base hit of her own in the third as Leake built up its lead, expanding the advantage to 13-1 in the top of the fifth.
Heritage Academy got a run back on Rhett’s run-scoring single to left in the bottom of the inning, but it wasn’t enough.
Matthews said Heritage Academy didn’t simply host a team of Leake’s caliber as a mere tune-up for district play; rather, she and assistant Kendall Wilkinson instruct the Patriots to treat every game the same.
“It doesn’t matter because we’re going to come out here and we’re going to play the best we can, so it doesn’t matter who we play,” Matthews says she tells her team.
Tipton said that despite the loss, the Pats delivered a solid performance ahead of Thursday’s home rivalry doubleheader with Starkville Academy.
“We did pretty good today,” Tipton said. “We really could have done better; everyone could have done better. We played as a team. That’s all you can do.”
Other scores
Winston Academy 10, Starkville Academy 3
Marshall Academy 16, Oak Hill Academy 6
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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