Olivia Elkhill Provides Offense As Tipton-Rosemark Falls 9-0 On Saturday

The Baylor softball team was delayed a little bit in making their plans for the Spring Fling state championships next week, but they can go ahead now after taking care of business Saturday afternoon.

Baylor's success in recent years is unsurpassed as they've won the last nine Division II-AA state titles and 12 of the past 13.

And never had they been forced to play a third game in the Best of Three quarterfinal series, but that's exactly what they did this weekend.

The Tipton-Rosemark Lady Rebels shouted a loud wake-up call for Baylor as they played near-perfect first game at Baylor Friday afternoon in a 2-0 win.  The Lady Red Raiders didn't panic as they came back to win the second game by a 14-2 landslide in five innings.

It was a winner-take-all game three on Saturday afternoon.  The momentum had been on Baylor's side following that second game on Friday and it just stayed there as the Lady Red Raiders improved to 20-7-1 with the impressive 9-0 victory.

Baylor will now play Lipscomb Academy in Tuesday's opening game while the Lady Rebels finish their season at 24-20-1.

It's obvious that Baylor has been down this road many times before, so they weren't about to let a little bump in the road on Friday distract them from their ultimate goal.

They were all business as they approached the softball complex on Saturday afternoon and they never flinched once the game finally started.

Tipton-Rosemark junior Lanie Howe pitched a near-perfect game in Friday's first game, but we all knew she would be hard-pressed to do it two days in a row.

She did not.

Baylor didn't score in the first two innings, but their bats came to life after that as they scored one run in the third, three in the fourth, four in the fifth before adding one more in the sixth.

Meanwhle, Baylor sophomore Rylee Jasper did her thing in the circle.

She led a leadoff single to Lola Sprenkle to start the game, but didn't allow another hit until Peyton Sykes got on with one out in the sixth.  A leadoff walk to Addie Thorpe in the seventh was the only walk she allowed as base runners were few and far between for the Lady Rebels.

Baylor had been limited to just four hits in Friday's first game before exploding for 16 in the second game.  The bats stayed hot on Saturday as they finished the game with 10, including three by leadoff hitter Olivia Elkhill.

This is her first year at Baylor and spent more than a month sidelined with stress fractures in both legs.  She was cleared to play on Friday morning.

She went hitless in the first game on Friday, but had four hits in the second game.  Her attack at the plate continued on Saturday as she had three more hits and scored three runs.

She doubled with two outs in the third and scored on a single by Chloe Cunningham to give Baylor an early 1-0 lead.  She helped break the game open with a three-run homer in the fourth.

Brentley Gentry had singled and Emma Hartline walked with two outs before Elkhill ripped a 1-0 pitch over the fence in right-center to put Baylor up 4-0.

The hitting continued for Baylor in the fifth as Xahara Willis led off with a single before Adison Wallington doubled.  Amiya Leach then drove in the fifth run with a single to left before a groundout by Jasper drove in another.  A bad throw from first to third went in the Lady Rebel dugout, allowing the seventh run to score. Mary Blake Reese then wrapped up the scoring with a solo homer to right.

Elkhill got her third straight hit with a single to lead off the sixth and went to second on Tipton-Rosemark's fourth error of the game.  Willis flied to center for the first out and Wallington ripped another fly to center, driving in courtesy runner Wrigley Burge with the last run.

Jasper then issued her only walk when Thorpe led off the seventh, but back-to-back grounders provided the first two outs before Jasper struck out Lauren Pickett to end the game.

Jasper is just a 16-year-old sophomore, but she was like her teammates and ready to play when the game began.

"We were prepared as the coaches did a great job with our game plan, but we just had to trust in each other.  It was outstanding all the way around as my defense made great plays all day," she expressed.

Elkhill was another one who was all smiles once the game had ended.

"We just came out with a lot of energy today," she began.

"I feel great as it was nice to be able to contribute in a positive way.  It's been a tough road for me this season, but I had nothing to lose this weekend as I just tried to relax and do the best I could," she nodded.

Baylor coach Kelli Smith has been part of two state championships as a player and now 15 as a coach.  She wouldn't admit being nervous before the start of Saturday's game, but she and her players were fully aware of the end result.

"We've never been in this situation before as we just had to flush yesterday's first game.  We came back and played well in the second game and knew they still had to beat us again to move on," Smith expressed while speaking to sports writers and TV journalists at the same time.

"We just wanted to relax and have some fun, but we were Baylor today.  We got started early this morning and I thought we hit the ball hard all game.

"And I can't say enough about Rylee Jasper, who is a warrior from the ground up.  I thought she pitched  a great game for us, but I was just hoping that we would play well today and we did," Smith smiled.

Tipton-Rosemark coach Johnie Sanfratello certainly didn't make excuses for his team.

"It's hard to lose that last game, but we knew we'd have to play another near-perfect game like the first one yesterday.  Baylor has a great program and all you have to do is look at all of those banners hanging on the fence, but I'm proud of how we competed here this weekend as we gave it all we had," he added.

Elkhill had three hits, three runs scored and three RBIs while Willis had two hits and scored once. 

Jasper was really good as she allowed the two hits and one walk with no runs and five strikeouts.

Howe wasn't anywhere close to as good on Saturday as she was on Friday as she went the distance and took the loss after allowing all nine runs on 10 hits.  She also had one walk and four strikeouts.

TIPTON-ROSEMARK  000 000 0 – 0 2 4

BAYLOR  001 341 x – 9 10 1

Howe and Willis; Jasper and Willis.

(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)