Lady Tigers earn comeback win over Twin Rivers

BROSELEY — Heading to the top of the third, the Neelyville Lady Tigers trailed Twin Rivers 5-2, but coach Dan Sexton knew his team could chip away at the lead and that’s exactly what it did.

Neelyville scored one in the third to start their run and tied the game in the fourth. The Lady Tigers took the lead in the fifth and never looked back in the 14-5 victory as they held Twin Rivers scoreless in all but one frame.

“It feels good,” Sexton said. “What feels even better is that we’ve had the changes over the past three weeks and we’re starting to come together now. We’re starting to have good attitudes and we’re starting to put in more effort in practice. If we do that, I’ll be satisified.”

With the game tied 2-2 in the bottom of the second, Sexton made a pitching change with the bases loaded and no outs. After getting two outs, Neelyville couldn’t close the frame as the Lady Royals struck for three but that didn’t deter the Tigers.

“It says a lot,” he said. “I told them, hopefully we’ve turned the corner. We’ve had a couple of games the past few weeks where we got down, had a couple errors and we let it get to us and it snowballed into more and it just kept going. To get down, come back and stay with it, I’m proud of them for that.”

The Lady Tigers got production from multiple spots in their lineup but the top four did the most damage.

The first four in the Neelyville lineup had eight hits, eight RBIs and nine runs in the victory.

Reese Dobbins (3-4, HR, 2 2B, 2 RBI, 4 runs) and Parker Ernst (3-5, 2 2B, 5 RBIs, 2 runs) had big days for the Lady Tigers.

Callei Moss went 2-for-3 with an RBI and two runs while Jade Crosswhite had two runs and Miah Martin had two RBIs.

September Preslar came on in the circle in the top of the second and had 11 strikeouts in six innings while only giving up one run.

Sexton is no stranger to coaching as he used to coach baseball as well. When the bats were rocking’ for the Tigers in the later innings, he said it’s always fun to see.

“They get into it,” he said. “What we’ve been trying to do, we’ve gotten down a few times and morale has gone down in the dugout, just got to keep it up the whole time.

“It’s so fun. They’re great kids. We care about them. It’s not just about softball.”

For the Lady Royals, Anne Mittlestadt went 1-for-2 with a double, two RBIs and a run.

Neelyville plays Tuesday at Naylor while Twin Rivers start a long road trip that begins with Sikeston on Monday.