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Good Knight, and Good Luck: Julia's HR completes Plano sweep of Guyer
BY Kevin Hageland, khageland@starlocalnews.com
After opening its best-of-3 bi-district playoff series against Denton Guyer Friday with a 2-1 win, the Plano Senior softball team appeared in for another close one Saturday afternoon.
That is until the bottom of the sixth inning.
Holding a 4-3 lead, Plano piled on four runs to create a sizable advantage in an eventual 8-4 win that would equate a 2-0 series victory in a battle of Lady Wildcats.
Plano had its most fun in the sixth.
After a leadoff single by senior Katie Hart, one of three Plano players with two hits alongside seniors Ashley McDowell and Kat Batey, junior Julia Knight stepped to the plate with one on and one out.
"I didn't do so well in my at-bat before that one," Knight said.
But after popping up to shortstop in the fourth, Knight belted a two-run shot over the fence in dead center to make it 6-3.
"My dad was here today," Knight said, "and I wanted him to see that I really am a good softball player; I wanted him to be proud of me."
Papa had reason to be proud as Knight's bomb sparked a four-run surge.
"Julia has been hitting like that all year," Zea said of her No. 9 hitter. "And that's the great thing about this lineup; there really is no bottom of the lineup, we have hitters that contribute No. 1-9."
A pair of Guyer errors and double from McDowell put two more runs on the board and gave the home Lady Wildcats an 8-3 advantage heading into the seventh.
This was a reversal of fortune from the start of the game as Guyer got on the board first courtesy of a two-run homer from Suzette Palmer, who was also in the circle for the visiting Lady Wildcats.
"I wasn't worried at all about the home run," Zea said, "because it was still the first inning and we were going to have to score a few runs to win the game anyway."
In a game where both teams were aided by a solid wind and second chance at seeing the same starting pitchers, Plano got its offense going in the second inning. The team's first five hitters reached base, including a two-RBI single from senior Erin Lowell that made it 2-2. Knight added an RBI to give Plano its first lead at 3-2.
That one-run margin remained intact an inning later with both teams tacking on a run.
Guyer managed a brief tie with an RBI single from Kylie Miyata, who joined Palmer and Hannah Hodapp with multi-hit games, but Plano regained the lead in the bottom of the third as senior Mackenzie Velasquez scored one of her two runs to make it 4-3.
There the score would stay until the bottom of the sixth.
Part of the reason for that was the pitching of Batey, who allowed just one hit in the fourth through sixth innings against a Guyer lineup that features four lefties.
"Guyer does have a lot of left-handed hitters, but really, the biggest adjustment we had to make today was the wind," said Hart, Plano's catcher. "When the ball got up in the air, it was going out, so we had to keep the ball down and away."
That kept Guyer at bay and allowed Plano to extend its lead to 8-3 in the sixth.
"We felt we needed those runs," Knight said, "so we could get a bit of a cushion."
It was needed as Guyer loaded the bases in the seventh. Miyata knocked a run in with two outs, but Plano senior center fielder Kristen Miles fired the ball in to second, catching the runner off the bag and registering an 8-4 putout to complete the 8-4 Plano victory.
With Plano's win and Plano East's 4-0 victory Saturday over Southlake Carroll, all four 8-5A teams swept their bi-district series.
"The opening round (of the postseason) is nothing to take lightly," Hart said, "but we feel like our district prepares us for anything we are going to see in the playoffs."
Next up for Plano is Mansfield Legacy in a battle of top 10 state-ranked teams.
"We are playing well right now," Hart said, "so we want to continue gaining momentum and not get complacent."
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