Lockridge, Fort sweep Cougars

STUARTS DRAFT – It was supposed to be a battle between talented freshmen pitchers Friday.

Too bad nobody sent Fort Defiance senior Tiffany Lockridge the text message.

With the Indians up 2-1 entering the second inning of an expected Southern Valley pitcher’s duel between Fort’s Payton Hill and Draft’s Lauren Campbell, Lockridge sent an 0-1 pitch to the wall in center for a triple, clearing the loaded bags and extending Fort’s lead and pushed the Indians to a season sweep of Draft, this time with an 8-2 victory along U.S. 340.

“I’m just glad she did that,” Hill said.

Lockridge got a quick high five from coach Max Hill as she came into third and, when Courtney Allman plated her three pitches later, she shot a quick glance toward her parents in the stands and smiled. Dad returned the favor with a big thumbs up and mom waved.

“I wanted to get up there and at least drive in one run,” Lockridge said. “I’ve been working on my hitting and it definitely paid off.”

Lockridge, who finished the day 2-for-4, said she had no clue what kind of pitch Campbell sent to the plate on her crushing blow.

“It looked good,” she said. “So I just swung.”

Payton Hill cruised the rest of the way, pitching three innings before being lifted for Jessica Hogle. The freshman starter’s defining moment came in the second inning when, on the cusp of sending the Cougars down in order, she fell behind 3-0 to Kasey Clark. Payton Hill began to chip away at the corners, filling the count, before getting Clark to bite on a low-outside pitch that popped into the air and was caught by Kendra Cash in right.

The Cougars, after touching the freshman for one run in the first, could manage only one more run the rest of the way – a bloop RBI single from Campbell in the sixth.

Despite her short, but winning, performance, Payton Hill found some faults in her pitching.

“I could have hit my spots more,” she said. “They were kind of more wild than I wanted them to be.”

One night after committing four errors in one inning in a loss to Spotswood, the Cougars (4-4, 1-2 Southern Valley) committed four in the full seven against Draft. They came, however, at the worst possible times – including one in Fort’s four-run second that broke the game open.

“This time it was ugly,” said Draft coach Michelle Campbell. “Those first couple of innings were tough for us.”

It started out as expected, with Lauren Campbell striking out Brooke Sigrist to kick things off. But Lockridge, known more for her bunting before her second-inning triple, beat out a slow dribbler down the third-base line and touched home on Allman’s first RBI hit of the game. Hogle drove in Allman before Lauren Campbell regained her composure, inducing Nicole Heinrich into a ground out to first and ending the inning with her second strikeout of the game.

Draft got its first run in the bottom half of the inning, but Payton Hill went to work after a visit to the mound from her father/coach, Max Hill. She only struck out one Cougar, but a strong defense behind her swallowed up grounders like a gutter and snared pop flies like they were hunting butterflies.

“I have a good defense behind me,” Payton Hill said.

Lauren Campbell worked her way through four innings, not giving up another run the rest of the way, and was relieved by Ariel Christy.

The Indians (10-1, 3-0 Southern Valley) would add two more runs in the seventh, but didn’t need them after Lockridge’s second-inning shot – a triple that had Fort coach Max Hill still smiling 15 minutes after the game was over.

“That’s nice,” he said. “Everybody knows she’s going to bunt, now that [triple] adds a little threat to her game.”