Coach Hughes Recaps Jonesville Belles District 5 Title Run

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

The Jonesville Dixie Belles (13 -15yr old) girls finished up play in Winnsboro this past week with a second place finish in district tournament play. The team consisted of Emma Barker, Lacee Book, Shea Boothe, Blake Colclasure, Kassidy Gunn, Nikki Harbor, Kaley Hughes, Micahla Hughes, Shianne McCarthy, Emilee Smith, Zakedriah Smith and Whitney Taunton. Coaches were Micah Hughes, Kirby King and Houston Book.

The Belles started out by defeating Delhi 15-4 then they knocked off East Ouachita 10-3.

Their third game of the tournament was against the only other undefeated team (Winnsboro) where the Jonesville team managed to scratch out a 3-1 victory by scoring 2 runs in the 6th inning off a Kaley Hughes triple.

The following night was a rainout and the tournament was moved to Rayville where the Jonesville Belles faced Rayville. The Jonesville girls received their first loss 1-3 against a strong Rayville pitcher. Jonesville had their chances, but left 8 runners in scoring position throughout the game.

With a bye in the semi final round, the Home team would have to face the winner of the Winnsboro-Rayville game. Winnsboro defeated Rayville, and the table was set for a re-match of one of the best games of the tournament. Smart coaching and the benefit of a bye in the first round for Winnsboro resulted in the availability of their ace pitcher, Katie Johnson for the entire championship game.

Winnsboro took the early lead with 1 run in the bottom of the first inning. Jonesville had the chance to score in the top of the second but their runner was called out for an illegal slide at the plate. Jonesville pitcher, Emilee Smith, kept Winnsboro in check for the remainder of the first four innings at which time she had to be removed from the mound because she had reached her inning limit for the tournament.

Micahla Hughes came on in relief and pitched two solid innings. Unfortunately a double followed by a four base error in the fifth inning plated two more runs for Winnsboro and sealed the tournament victory.

Emilee Smith led the Jonesville pitching with 15 innings pitched, giving up only 4 hits and 0 earned runs while amassing 17 strikeouts. Micahla Hughes pitched 9 innings, allowing 5 hits. Nikki Harbor pitched 7 innings allowing 1 hit and 4 strikeouts and Lacee Book pitched 3 innings allowing no hits.

The offense was led by Nikki Harbor with a .455 batting average, 2-RBIs, Micahla Hughes .417, 4 RBIs, Lacee Book .400, 2 RBIs, Blake Colclasure .333, 4 RBIs. Zakedriah Smith 4 RBIs, Kaley Hughes 3 RBIs Shianne McCarthy 3 RBIs, Emilee Smith, Shea Boothe and Kassidy Gunn with 2 RBIs each.

Coach Micah Hughes said “I’m really proud of our girls and the way they played. We had a really young team with most of them not having a lot of experience in tournament play. They worked very hard for the two and a half weeks of practice we had. We worked a lot on bunting and aggressive base running in practice to get runners in scoring position and it really paid off during the tournament.

We were in every game and had chances to win them, but things just didn’t go our way. We had a couple of controversial calls by the umpires that really hurt us. We also made too many mistakes on the base paths, a lot of which I chalk up to inexperience.

I also think the rainout day and then having to travel to Rayville to play them there took away some of the momentum we had built up in the first three games. We will have most of the team returning next year to make another run.

We are only losing a couple of girls off of this team, so I’m really excited about getting back into action next year. Overall I couldn’t have asked for anything more out of our team. They gave it everything they had. Sure they made some mistakes, but they are 13-15 year olds and we don’t expect them to be perfect.

We gave up fewer runs per game than any team in the tournament thanks to solid pitching and some excellent defensive plays. We were also second only to Winnsboro for the most runs scored.”

Coach Hughes also said he would like to thank all of the fans and parents for their support. “When you’ve got the community and the kid’s parents supporting you, it makes your job a lot easier.”

We had a huge following of supporters throughout the tournament, and I believe we had more fans for the championship game than home team Winnsboro did.

“This really showed me what kind of community we live in and we are very proud to be a part of it.”

Special thanks also goes out to David Ryan and catahoulalife.com for the photos and write-ups of the girls for each game, and for keeping our fans posted with up to the minute changes in scheduling due to the rainy weather.