Lady Gators shut out Franklin County 11-0

After a week layoff, ther Wewahitchka  Lady Gators cemented their status as the top team in Class 1A  District 4 softball, shutting out Franklin County 11-0 on a three-hitter by senior Haley Guffey Friday night.

The win wrapped up the Gators’ conference play with an undefeated 6-0 record, and lifted their regular season record to 12-3.

Guffey gave up just a pair of hits to freshman Micahlyn O’Neal, and one to eighth-grader Lexi Webb, but no runs crossed the plate. She fanned a dozen Seahawks and walked six, three of them to her rival on the mound, freshman Sarah Ham.

Ham was able to strike out just one Gator,  and walked two, as she gave up 13 hits and nine earmed runs to take the six-inning loss.

“We hit the ball well, we hit it sharp and that’s the name of the game,” said assistant coach J.D. Green.  “For not playing for a week, we hadn’t seen  any live pitches for a week,  to come out and hit the ball as well as we did, I think that was exceptional.

“They worked hard all week long, and then they come in tonight, we had one strikeout out of all our at-bats, you couldn’t ask for anything better,” he said. 

“I think we put some pressure on them and they are young, and we figured if we could start putting a little pressure on them, they’d fold a little bit,” said Green.

The Seahawks dug themselves a five-run hole in the top of the second inning, with the unwelcome help of three errors, and then gave up another two in the fifth and four in the six, to end the game early on the wrong end of the 11-0 score.

Falling that far behind early, “it’s real hard to get back in the game,” said Seahawks coach Scott Collins.

“They (Wewa) has improved a lot since we played them last time,” he said, referring to a narror 4-3 loss in Gulf County the first time the two teams met.

“They went on to beat Marianna 9-3 and Marianna has been the most dominant team in the area this year,” Collins said. “They’ve improved a lot, They battle so hard at the plate. I gotta give them all the credit.

“They’re tough,” he said. “For us to beat him, we got to get tougher.

“There’s a decent chance we’ll play them two more times. We could play them for a district title and we could play them for a regional title,” Collins said. “To get to the big dance, we’ve got to beat them in the regional title game.

“We’ve talked about some things that we can improve and what we can do to stop making some of these same mistakes and I think they will be out here Monday and work as hard as we can to get ready (for the post-season),” he said.