Lady Lions drops district game at Anson

By Sam Waller

The Albany Lady Lions softball team battled Friday, March 21 in a 9-0 loss at Anson as pitcher Carisa Barrera returned to action after being struck in the face by a line drive against Hawley.

The Lady Lions (6-3 overall, 1-2 District 8-2A) hosted Stamford on Tuesday, March 25. Results will be reported next week. Albany begins the second round of the district schedule at 5:00 p.m. Friday, March 28 when Abilene TLCA visits.

A game scheduled for Tuesday, March 8 at Haskell was cancelled as Barrera recovered from her injury. Lady Lions coach Jimmy Fuentes said the game may be made up at the end of the season if it will affect the district’s playoff seeds.

At Anson, Barerra, wearing a protective mask, struck out eight over six innings while giving up nine runs on 10 hits.

“Carisa showed a lot of courage, didn’t flinch once,” Fuentes said. “We were worried she might be a little gunshy coming back. She didn’t show the least bit of being scared.”

Anson’s Kayme Elrod held Albany to four hits while striking out 15. Gabby Lopez went 2 for 3 for the Lady Lions, while J’Cee Keen and Jayden Kelly each had a hit.

The big difference was three of Anson’s hits left the yard with runners on base. Elrod homered twice and drove in four runs, while Jiselle Ramos had a homer and three RBIs. Elrod connected during a three-run third. Elrod and Ramos went deep in a six-run fifth.

Two factors Fuentes noted were staying close most of the way and not settling for a mercy-rule finish over the last two innings.

“I told the girls afterwards they need to be pretty proud of that performance,” he said. “I know the scoreboard makes it look like we got throttled, but we played a pretty respectable game considering our situation. We had one error.”