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PREP SOFTBALL: Tennessee, Virginia split FCA all-star doubleheader
This time the saying wasn’t just a hollow platitude.
Everybody really was a winner Friday at the Fellowship of Christian Athletes softball all-star challenge.
The top seniors from Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia split a doubleheader at Ridgeview Field, with the girls from the commonwealth taking the opener 5-1 and the Volunteer state squad responding with a 7-3 triumph in the nightcap.
By aggregate score, the night couldn’t have been any more even as both teams ended up with eight runs apiece.
“We both won,” said Samantha Mahala of Johnson County, who hit the evening’s only home run, a solo shot over the left-field fence in the second game. “It was good we split it.”
Game 1 was marked by stellar efforts from a trio of Powell Valley all-stars, who gave the Vikings uniform a fitting farewell showing before the school is consolidated this summer with Appalachia to form Union High School.
Vikings Jessica Winstead, Brittany Bishop and Erica Gilliam each scored a run in the opener for the Virginia squad and the Virginia team’s other two runs were driven in by Bishop.
“I wasn’t expecting us to do that great,” Bishop said. “It was really awesome for all of us to do the best that we could all for the last time.”
Cassie Chadwell also represented Powell Valley at the event and played all seven innings of Game 2 on the field with Appalachia catcher Teryn Mullins, the lone representative for the Bulldogs.
“I’m glad we got to put that jersey on one last time and even play with someone from Appalachia,” Bishop said. “It was really cool.”
Kelsey Weddle, who was named the Virginia team MVP for Game 1, gave the Powell Valley girls all the help they would need, recording two hits, driving in a run, scoring a run and striking out 12 in the circle.
The Patrick Henry standout also showed off her famous competitiveness one last time to area high school softball fans, tearing skin off her left shin on a steal in the top of the seventh that left her blue sock bloodstained as she finished out the game ala Curt Schilling and his famous bloody stocking in the 2004 MLB playoffs.
“I really didn’t intend for it to start bleeding, but I’m always going to try as hard as I can with whatever I do,” Weddle said.
Weddle at one point retired 13 straight batters and carried a shutout into the final inning. Unicoi County all-star Kara Woods, the Game 1 Tennessee team MVP, had the only two hits off Weddle until Sullivan South’s Taylor Fink drove in Science Hill’s Sarah Trent to finally put Tennessee on the board in the opener.
“I love playing softball,” Weddle said. “I love competing in general. It was really fun playing with these girls, a group of girls that all really love softball.”
Tennessee fared much better in Game 2, scoring three runs in the first inning and leading throughout.
Mahala, who carried a no-hitter into the fourth inning in addition to blasting her home run, was named the team MVP for Tennessee in the nightcap. Chilhowie’s Brooke Pennington picked up the same Game 2 honor for the Virginia squad after smacking an RBI double and scoring after she reached on an error in the first inning.
Tennessee High, Virginia High, John Battle and Abingdon didn’t have any representatives in the games. South’s Fink was the only player for a Sullivan County school to take part in the event.
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