By JASON KING
Leader sportswriter
RUSSELLVILLE — It had been a few years, but the Cabot Lady Panthers made their way back into the quarterfinal round of the 7A state softball tournament over the weekend. The No. 4 seed Lady Panthers took a 3-1 win over a pesky Rogers team in the first round on Friday at Hickey Park to advance to Saturday’s quarterfinal game against West No. 1 seed Fayetteville.
The Lady Bulldogs proved too much for the Lady Panthers, however, shutting them out 3-0, to end an up-and-down season for Cabot.
The Lady Panthers ended their season with a 10-10 record.
It was the first time in three years that Cabot has advanced past the first round of the state tournament.
Cabot pitcher Cherie Barfield gave up doubles to the first three Lady Mounties batters in Friday’s first-round game, which led to the only Rogers’ score of the game in the top of the first inning.
She began to find the sweet spot after the early hiccup, striking out 12 batters and allowing only two more hits, both of which came in the top of the fifth inning after the Lady Panthers had seized the lead.
“Cherie starts out slow, she always does,” Cabot coach Becky Steward said. “And then she’ll come through. Thankfully, they only scored one run. When they went double, double, double, I just went ‘Oh no, here we go,’ but she settled down. You’ve got to give her defense credit; they stayed behind her.”
That defensive play resulted in one Rogers runner stranded and another tagged out by second baseman Kristy Flesher in the fifth. Barfield chased down a bunt by Chase Todd and got the throw to first baseman Ashton Seidl for the out. Seidl then tossed it to Flesher when Lady Mounties runner Ashley Brown began to lead off second.
The offensive effort wasn’t as productive as the pair of runaway wins against Mt. Saint Mary three days prior, but a three-hit, three-score performance for the Lady Panthers in the bottom of the second inning proved to be enough.
Cleanup hitter Rachel Lamb started things off for Cabot in the second when she reached on an error. A single to right by designated player Kayla Hart advanced Lamb, and another single by Tara Boyd scored her to tie the game at 1-1.
Becca Bakalakos drove in the next run with a single to right center, and a sacrifice bunt by Jordan Reed allowed Boyd in for the final score of the game.
“One inning can do it,” Steward said. “You’re supposed to have the best of the best here. We’ve been working on that outside pitch exclusively all year long. When we see it, usually, we connect with it. I just wish we would have gotten more runs.
“It’s like this all year long. They score some runs and get ahead and then they just kind of go into coast mode. You can’t do that.”
Steward was all smiles after Friday’s win, and attributed her squad’s late-season surge on what at the time seemed like an unlikely win against a very tough opponent.
“I’m going to go back to the Conway game,” Steward said. “When we beat Conway in the tiebreaker in eight innings, that started our run. That was great to beat the state champs for the last two years in a row. This is good for us. We have not been past the first round in three years, so this is a good win.”
For Seidl, it was her final weekend as a Lady Panther, as she will move on to Central Baptist College to become a part of the Lady Mustangs softball program. The Lady Panthers team captain was also jubilant after the big win over Rogers.
“We were very nervous out there, but we came through with it and did pretty good,” Seidl said. “The second inning took us from low to sky high. We did amazing at the end of the second inning, I was really proud of all of us. That was what turned the game around for us.”
