Lady Sabres top BlacksburgMi

By LARRY HILLIARD
Ledger Sports Editor

The bad news: Southside Christian topped the Blacksburg Lady Wildcats Tuesday to claim the region’s No. 1 seed in the playoffs.

The good news: The Lady Wildcats will share the region championship with Whitmire and Southside Christian and will have homefield advantage when they meet Calhoun Falls to open the playoffs on Thursday.

Whitmire topped the Lady Sabres 4-2 Tuesday, to force a playoff to break a 3-way tie for the No. 1 seed.

Whitmire, Southside Christian and Whitmire all finished with 10-2 region marks.

Blacksburg drew a bye, setting up a matchup between Southside Christian and Whitmire. This time, the Lady Sabres cruised to an easy 10-1 victory to advance to the region championship game against the Lady Wildcats.

Blacksburg had a chance to secure an outright region crown, but lost 7-1 at Southside Christian on Monday. The Lady Wildcats committed five errors in the game.

Southside Christian benefitted from a Lady Wildcat throwing error to score two more runs in the second.

The Lady Wildcats scored their lone run in the sixth when Crystal Jones reached, advanced to second on a wild pitch, went to third on a groundout and scored on Alice Bolton’s RBI groundout.

Jones had two of the Lady Wildcats’ four hits. Michaela Byars and Bolton had the other hits.

Southside Christian had 12 hits.

Whitney Crawford was the losing pitcher.

The Lady Wildcats will begin the playoffs on Thursday.