Lady Tigers drop pair to Northridge in tourney play

The Demopolis Lady Tigers dropped a pair of games to Northridge High in the Northside Tournament Saturday, capping their weekend at 1-3 to open the 2015 campaign.

The Lady Tigers opened the day with a 6-5 loss to Northridge to wrap up pool play. The teams battled to a 5-5 tie through the first two innings before Northridge broke through in the fourth with a walk-off score.

Northridge got a runner to first on a dropped third strike, moved her to third on a double and plated the game winner on a sacrifice fly.

“It was a tough way to lose,” Demopolis coach Stephen Campbell said. “We only had three errors in the game. Last year we would’ve been excited about that. But when we gave up six walks and a hit batter, that coupled in with our errors did us in.”

Abbey Latham went 2-for-2 in the game with a grand slam, four RBIs, two runs scored and an intentional walk.

“That’s already speaking volumes of her, already starting to draw intentional walks this early,” Campbell said of the sophomore catcher.

Jessica Adams went 1-for-3 with a run scored. Courtney Smith reached on an error and scored a run. Taylor Smith, Jade Montgomery and Cameron Thomason each went 1-for-2. Anna Caroline Logan went 1-for-2 with a run scored.

“We battled. It was Northridge’s first game of the year and we had just played two games the night before in 30-degree weather. Our girls were a little stiff. We out-hit them 7-2,” Campbell said. “We had hits distributed throughout the lineup. We had six girls get a hit. We just couldn’t string it together and get those one or two hits to break the game open.”

The Lady Tigers drew Northridge again in the first game of tournament play, falling once more by a margin of 6-5.

“We out hit them 9-7. But they were able to put together those big innings,” Campbell said. “We had three errors, which wasn’t terribly bad but they came at the worst times. We’re cutting down on our errors, but we are making them at the worst possible times in the game, which is costing us.”

The Lady Tigers scored two runs in the first inning and one in each of the third, fourth and fifth frames. Northridge got three runs in the fourth and three more in the fifth for the win.

“We are still learning how to finish a game. These games are definitely going to help them when we get into April and May because we’ve been in that situation,” Campbell said. “It didn’t go our way, but these are things that when we face them in the future, we will know that we have seen these situations.”

Adams went 1-for-2 with a RBI and a run scored. Courtney Smith drew a walk and scored a run. Latham went 3-for-3 with a RBI and two runs scored. Taylor Smith was 3-for-3 with 3RBIs. Thomason finished 1-for-3 while Logan was 1-for-2. Alex Abrams scored a run.

“We actually ran three suicides in that game. We played a little small ball. Abbey had her bunt single and Taylor had three perfect bunts that led to runs being scored,” Campbell said of the offensive approach the Lady Tigers used in the game. “Trusting in a seventh grader to be able to step in there and bunt it with a runner on third, is very big.”

The Lady Tigers are set to play again Tuesday at 4 p.m. when they host Washington County.