Livingston softball needed to come from behind to collect their seventh district win of the season Tuesday, defeating the Hargrave Lady Falcons of Huffman, 10-5.
The Lady Lions were up 2-0 heading into the sixth inning. In the first, Taylor Wright doubled and was brought in on a Shelby Dickerson base hit. In the fourth, Corinne Henderson swatted a big fly to round the bags.
Livingston pitcher Brooke Anderson had thrown five frames of shutout ball. In trouble in the fifth, the bases were full of Lady Falcons with no outs. Anderson got the first on a bouncer back to her, getting the force at home. A pop up in foul territory, was caught by the catcher Henderson, and after a 3-0 count, the Livingston pitcher induced a liner to third, ending the threat.
"She has been working on her stuff and her movement," Livingston coach Heather Mosser said of Anderson. "But more so than that, she has been working on her mental confidence, and that is even a bigger aspect than a moving pitch, to me. When you can stay calm, cool and collected under pressure like that, we can get out of innings when the bases are loaded without allowing runs. Kudos to that kid for competing with composure. We have really been trying to work on that as a team and she does an outstanding job."
Yet, Hargrave had an answer, putting up three runs in the top half of the sixth. Aubri York doubled, and an error at shortstop got a run in. An infield single from Harley Juarez and RBI-double by Kaydence Raimer tied it at two, and Jesse Watson beat the throw at first to put Hargrave in front, 3-2.
Down, but not out, Livingston went to work on offense. Henderson singled and advanced on a wild pitch, Jacie David got her home on a single. Anderson walked and Raigen Long collected a base hit to load the bases. Callie Garcia brought in a run walking, and Wright cleared the bags with a triple.
"She is a little spark," the coach said of Wright. "We definitely feed off energy like that. When freshmen can step in the box and do a job like that and just be that spark, it is nice to see. It puts a lot of pressure, because she is an aggressive baserunner. My top five are good hitters and aggressive baserunners, so we can roll with that a lot. Surprisingly, the bottom of my lineup in games like this contribute a lot."
Brianna Nelson's sacrifice fly brought home Wright. Singles from Dickerson and Henderson (her second of the inning) set up a two-run triple by Breonna Niederhofer. Livingston led 10-3 with just one frame to play.
"This team is good at the bounce back," Mosser said. "We haven't shown it all year long, but I know that they have it. It just takes one quality at-bat to turn us around. We had a couple of them. To go down 3-2 and then go up 10-3, we had 10 quality at-bats that inning. That is a huge bounce back. I am rolling with that; I like that a lot."
The Lady Falcons did add two runs on a double off the bat of Juarez, but the margin provided in the sixth was too much.
Livingston is now 7-3 in district, good for third place behind Liberty and Shepherd. The team will have another shot at Shepherd Thursday for second place. Liberty remains undefeated in district and one of the state's better teams.
