Softball season ends at bi-district
By Sam Waller
The Albany Lady Lions saw their softball season come to a disappointing end with a pair of lopsided losses to Hawley in a Class 2A bi-district season.
The Lady Lions finished the year with a 15-15-1 record. Battling low numbers from the start, Albany dropped its last five games.
“I guess our kids learned a couple of lessons about life,” Lady Lions coach Jimmy Fuentes said, “lessons about accountability and being able to overcome adversity, the lesson of no matter what the situation is, we’re not going to quit.”
The last part was shown in the second game of the series. Hawley won Game 1, which was played Thursday, April 27 at McMurry University, 25-0. During the fifth inning, Haily Cox suffered an injury that forced her to move from shortstop to first base for the rest of the game, then sit out the series finale.
Just to be able to field a team for Game 2, which was played Friday, April 28 at Hawley, Fuentes conscripted Brooklyn Abbate, the sister of regular Albany first baseman Braylyn Abbate. Brooklyn was the second tennis player added to the roster in the final three weeks of the season.
“It would have been easy after getting beat the way we did in Game 1 to call and say ‘we’re not coming’,” Fuentes said. “But we refused to do that, and our kids refused to do that. I was proud of them for feeling that way about the situation instead of taking the easy way out.”
In the end, Albany’s season was concluded with a 17-1 loss. The Lady Lions finished with four hits and seven baserunners in the series.
In Game 1, Gabby Lopez had a leadoff single in the third. Braylyn Abbate had a two-out double in the fourth, which was followed by Gracie Price drawing a walk. Jayden Kelly reached on an error in the fifth.
Albany led briefly in Game 2 as Kaisley Bartee worked a walk to start the game, moved up on a stolen base and a wild pitch and scored on Robin Lucas’ groundout. Braylyn Abbate then singled.
In the third, Bartee singled.
Lucas pitched both games, giving up 18 earned runs on 31 hits over a total of eight innings.
After playing five freshmen and two sophomores this season, Fuentes said he’s looking at another young team in 2024.
“We’re graduating two (Cox and Price) seniors who were two of our biggest contributors,” he said.”We’re going to pick up a couple of freshmen that we know of, but it’s going to be another season where we have to grow up quickly.”
HAWLEY 25, ALBANY 0
SCORE BY INNING 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 R/H/E
HAWLEY 3 5 5 7 5 X X 25/15/1
ALBANY 0 0 0 0 0 X X 0/2/6
atbat runs hits RBI
Cox 1b 2 0 0 0
Bartee ss 2 0 0 0
Lucas p 2 0 0 0
BaAbbate 3b 2 0 1 0
Price c 1 0 0 0
Chapman 2b 2 0 0 0
Lopez lf 2 0 1 0
Kelly rf 2 0 0 0
Parrott cf 2 0 0 0
Totals 17 0 2 0
2B – Abbate. CS – Kelly.
IP H R ER BB SO
Lucas 5 15 25 16 13 0
WP – Lucas. PB – Price 16. HBP – Lucas 4.
HAWLEY 17, ALBANY 1
SCORE BY INNING 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 R/H/E
ALBANY 1 0 0 x x x x 1/2/8
HAWLEY 13 4 x x x x x 17/6/0
atbat runs hits RBI
Bartee ss 1 1 1 0
Parrott cf 2 0 0 0
Lucas p 2 0 0 1
BaAbbate 3b 1 0 1 0
Price c 1 0 0 0
Kelly rf 1 0 0 0
Lopez lf 1 0 0 0
Chapman 1b 1 0 0 0
BkAbbate 2b 1 0 0 0
Totals 10 1 2 1
SB – Bartee.
IP H R ER BB SO
Lucas 2 6 17 2 8 0
WP – Lucas 2. PB – Price.
