Roff Lady Tigers strong at Hall of Fame Shootout

Bob Forrest Sports Writer

Oklahoma City September 23, 2008 10:50 am

— Except for one little hiccup, Roff softball coach Kathy Gregson had a pretty nice weekend at the Oklahoma Shootout Friday and Saturday at Hall of Stadium.
Roff beat Class A powers Fletcher (No. 7) and Keota (No. 3) in games Friday and Saturday, then the Lady Tigers closed out their two-day stay in Oklahoma City with a 4-2 victory over Wynnewood Saturday afternoon. The only blemish on Roff’s record was a 4-0 loss to Hominy Friday in a game that was supposed to feature a showdown between the Lady Tigers (No. 10 in Class B) and Class B No. 3 Sasakwa but was switched when Hominy and Tonkawa (which rallied beat Sasakwa, 6-4) wound up in the same Class 2A district.
“I think we got really geared up for Fletcher (a 3-1 victory) and we just kind of let up for the second game (against Hominy) and lost focus,” Gregson said. “Hopefully we’ll learn from it.
“We didn’t hit at all in the second game and made a couple of mistakes,” she added. “Coming back and beating Keota (3-0) was big for us.”
The weekend star for Roff was senior righthander Jodie Byers, who allowed just two earned runs in her three starts. Byers held Fletcher to four hits, she surrendered just four hits and one earned run in the loss to Hominy, and she dominated Keota with a two-hit gem Saturday. She improved to 13-9 on the season while Roff moved to 18-10 overall.
Friday’s Games
Roff 3, Fletcher 1
Fletcher’s Morgan Bolin was very good on the mound, but Byers was just as good — and a whole lot luckier.
Although the Lady Tigers managed just three hits off Bolin, Fletcher’s defense committed three costly errors, including one in the first to help Roff to an early 1-0 lead and another which led to two unearned runs in the fifth to break a 1-1 tie.
Roff leadoff hitter Catie Tolliver manufactured a run in the first, leading off with a bloop single to right-center and racing all the way to third on a nice sacrifice bunt by Tyla Truett. Tolliver was still at third with two outs, but she scored the game’s first run when Byers’ routine ground ball to third was booted.
Fletcher tied the score with a controversial run in the bottom of the second. Bolin led off the inning with a walk and was replaced on the bases by Vanessa Yamaguchi. Lauren Whitefeather followed with a sacrifice bunt, and Roff first baseman Tera Otis made a nice throw to second base when Yamaguchi rounded the bag too far.
The umpire on the bases called Yamaguchi out, but after an appeal from the Fletcher bench to the home plate umpire, the call was overturned — despite a heated argument from Gregson and assistant coach Mike Stewart. Yamaguchi scored the game-tying run later in the inning on a two-out bloop single by eight-hole hitter Jordan Bowman, and by that time Stewart had been ejected by the umpire on the bases, allegedly for comments he made from the dugout.
Bolin allowed just one baserunner (Otis, who reached on an error leading off the second) between the error on Byers’ ground ball in the first and the top of the fifth inning. But she walked Magan Kile leading off the fifth, and fellow freshman J. J. Stewart reached on an error on her hard-hit ball to third base.
Another Roff freshman, Jordan Grinstead, sacrificed to put both runners in scoring position, and Kile scored the go-ahead run on a passed ball. Bolin struck out Tolliver for the second out before Truett delivered a bloop double to right to plate Stewart with the game’s final run.
Bolin allowed just three hits and struck out nine in her six inning of work, while Byers struck out five and walked just one batter.
Hominy 4, Roff 0
Roff loaded the bases with one out but failed to score in the second inning, then the Lady Tigers couldn’t mount a serious threat the rest of the way.
Truett and Stewart had two hits apiece to account for all four of Roff’s hits.
Saturday’s Games
Roff 3, Keota 0
Byers struck out just four, but the Roff defense played another solid game and the Lady Tigers did just enough offensively to get the win in the first-ever meeting between Roff and Keota in fast-pitch.
Ashlyn McCullar doubled and Byers walked with two outs in the first, they advanced on a wild pitch, and both scored on a clutch single by Spencer Phillips to put Roff up 2-0. The Lady Tigers capped the scoring in the second with another run on Tolliver’s RBI double, then Byers took over.
“Jodie pitched well,” Gregson said. “The times they hit the ball hard, it was at us and we made some nice plays. Things just clicked. It was an all-around team effort and a good win for us.”
Roff 4, Wynnewood 2
J. J. Stewart allowed just three hits en route to her sixth win in seven decisions, and Phillips drove in two runs as the Lady Tigers finished the weekend 3-1.
Stewart struck out just two, but she didn’t walk a batter, and some of Roff’s older players got big hits to give her all the run support she needed.
The Lady Tigers took a 2-0 in the first inning, which began with a walk to Truett and McCullar’s first of two hits in the game. Both runners moved up on a wild pitch, and Truett scored on Phillips’ RBI single, with McCullar scoring the second run in the inning on an error on the play.
Wynnewood scored single runs in the second and fourth to tie the game, then Roff took the lead for good in the bottom of the fourth. Byers led off with a single, moved to second on a wild pitch and scored on two errors.
The Lady Tigers added an insurance run in the sixth, on a leadoff single by McCullar, a stolen base and Phillips’ second RBI single of the game.
Roff visits Maud for a 4 p.m. contest Monday to close out the regular season, then the Lady Tigers host Milburn in a Class B District Wednesday.

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