By GRAHAM POWELL
Leader sportswriter
The Lady Panthers’ softball team got three wins this week, the last one very different than the first two. Cabot played a home-and-home 7A/6A-East doubleheader against Little Rock Central on Tuesday and Thursday, and won those two games by scores of 17-0 and 10-0. After Thursday’s 10-0 win at home, Cabot played host to Class 6A Sheridan in a nonconference game, and won that one by a narrow 4-3 margin.
Tuesday’s conference game at Central (4-12, 2-8) only lasted three innings. Cabot scored 10 of its 17 runs in the first inning. The Lady Panthers didn’t score in the top of the second, but scored their last seven runs in the third inning to end the game early because of the sportsmanship rule.
Cabot (18-3, 12-0) committed no errors Tuesday and got a perfect game from starting pitcher Lauren McCluskey. McCluskey only threw 29 pitches in the three-inning game, striking out all but one batter she faced.
At the plate, Cabot racked up 15 base hits Tuesday. McCluskey, Rachel Allgood and Hannah Montgomery led the way with two hits apiece. Thursday’s conference game in Cabot still ended early on the sportsmanship rule, but went six innings.
Cabot played several reserves in Tuesday’s game, and played mostly reserves in Thursday’s conference game. The Lady Panthers led 2-0 after the first four innings of play Thursday, scoring a run each in the third and fourth innings. Cabot put it away in the fifth and sixth innings by scoring four runs in each of those two innings.
The Lady Panthers outhit the Lady Tigers 7-2 on Thursday. Marlee Munford and Anna Beth Duncan led Cabot with two hits each in that game. Montgomery earned the win in the circle. She threw all six innings, finishing with six strikeouts with just one walk issued.
Cabot’s starters got to see their usual amount of playing time in Thursday’s nightcap nonconference game against Sheridan (17-5, 8-2).
The Lady Panthers scored the game’s first two runs in the bottom of the first, but the Lady Yellowjackets tied it up in the fourth with two runs scored and they took a 3-2 lead with a run in the top of the seventh.
The Lady Panthers, though, answered with two runs in the bottom of the seventh, winning it on a Parker Steadman sac fly to right field that scored shortstop Heather Hill.
