Lady Rebels Ride to Ringgold Ends State Route

The Fannin County High School Rebels softball team, after finishing fourth in the Region 7-AAA tournament, traveled to Ringgold to take on the number one seed, Lady Tigers. The Lady Rebels route to a state championship was ruined at Ringgold, as ran off two straight wins, sweeping the Lady Rebels 2-0, (10-2, 7-4).In game one, the Lady Rebels lead off with a Jace Armstrong single. Mallory Deal’s double scored Armstrong and the Fannin led 1-0 going into the bottom of the inning.

The Lady Tigers took advantage of two errors in the bottom of the first to score two runs and take the lead 2-1.

The Lady Tigers added three more runs in the bottom of the second to take a 5-1 lead going into the top of the third.

The top of the third saw the Lady Rebels cut into the lead. Milsaps’ one out single put a runner on base. After successfully stealing second and advancing to third on a wild pitch. Deal drove in Milsaps for the second time in the game, this time on a two out RBI single.

The score remained 5-2 until Ringgold rang up five runs in the bottom of the sixth, and took the first game 10-2.

The second game saw Fannin take the field as the home team, with the last at bat secured. The Lady Tigers’ claws came our early as Ringgold scored three runs in the top of the second inning.

Fannin got on the board in the bottom of the same inning when Amy Mintz, who led off the inning with a single to center field, scored by stealing home, cutting the lead to 3-1 going into the top of the third; however, Ringgold added two more runs in the top of the third to increase the lead to 5-1.

Fannin faced the same deficit going into the bottom of the fifth, and found a way to cut the lead to one. Jace Armstrong led off with a fly ball single to center field. She scored on a two run home run by Milsaps that cut the deficit to 5-3. Deal dealt the final blow to the lead, scoring on errant throw by the catcher.

Ringgold rang up two more runs in the top of the seventh, due to an error, and the Lady Rebels could not answer in the final at bat, as Fannin fell 7-4 in game two, and 2-0 in the series.

Head coach, David Dyer, spoke candidly to FYN after the losses.

“We knew going in Ringgold was the number one seed coming out of that Region and we felt like we had to go over there and play pretty much mistake free ball. We knew their pitcher had just come off I think two no hitters or one no hitter in their tournament. So I felt really good about the game plan we had going in. We knew they were going to try throw her best pitch, a screwball inside so we worked on it.”

Dyer also talked about the line up the Lady Rebels faced at Ringgold.

“They have three slappers in their line up so I knew that they were going to try to put pressure and that shouldn’t have been a problem for us because Buford is probably the best slapping team in the state with their three. So I felt like we prepared for it. We just didn’t execute.”