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After two tough losses in a doubleheader at Perry to start the season, the Schley County Wildcats softball team (SCHS) came into Monday’s home game against Calvary Christian (CC) with hopes of earning its first win of the season. However, the Wildcats committed a total of six errors and that ended up leading to a 10-5 loss to the Knights at Wildcat Park.

“I’ve been telling the girls all June and July that if you want to play this game at a high level, you’ve got to be able to throw and catch. That’s the basic part of this game,” SCHS Head Coach Jody Sellers said. “Offense can come and go at times depending on how good your pitcher is, but defense and pitching is something that’s got to be stapled. You’ve got to be able to throw strikes and make the other team earn what they get and we gave them a lot of help today. I just told the girls that if we make just one or two errors here or there, it’s a ball game and maybe we win. If we play clean, they might score one, maybe two runs and we win the ball game.”

Sellers went on to say that he has been stressing to the team the importance of playing the game with as few errors as possible and that it is something that can be corrected.

CC scored four runs in the top of the first inning. The big blow came from the bat of Kamryn Johnson, who belted a two-run homer. The Wildcats responded in their half of the inning with two runs on one hit with a walk, a hit batsman and an error. Abby Cheek was able to reach on an error that allowed Emma Sizemore to score and Payton English drove in a run on an RBI single.

The Knights took a 5-2 lead in the top of the third when Elizabeth Stokes reached on an error that allowed Kamryn Johnson to score, but the Wildcats countered with two runs in the bottom half of the inning on a two-run homer by Reece Bell.

However, the Knights scored four more runs in the top of the sixth inning on three singles and took advantage of another SCHS error. The Wildcats would respond with another run in the bottom half of the inning, but that would be as close as they would get, as they would go on to lose to CC by the score of 10-5.

Payton English led the Wildcats’ offense by going 2 for 4 at the plate with an RBI and Reece Bell went 1-3 with the two-run homer in the bottom of the third.

Alyssa Harry got the start in the circle for the Wildcats and took the loss. She gave up 10 runs on nine hits, walked two and struck out two.

Kentlee Spates and Elizabeth Stokes both led the Knights’ offense by going 2 for 4 at the plate. Spates scored a run and drove in two RBIs and Stokes scored two runs.

Kendall Gumm started in the circle for CC and got the win. She gave up five runs on seven hits, walked three batters and struck out four.