NORTH AUGUSTA 8, CATAWBA RIDGE 0
The North Augusta softball team was only going to accept one outcome this season.
The Yellow Jackets have been so good for so many years, yet it seemed like there would be some new reason each year that their season would end earlier than they wanted.
Last year may have been the most painful, when a loose and carefree Darlington team came to Riverview Park and stunned North Augusta with two wins in one day to steal the district title, sending off another senior class with the sting of coming up just short.
The juniors on that team said their goodbyes, then set out on a course to make sure they wouldn’t leave the field with the same tears they saw in the eyes of their older teammates.
That course encountered another bump, this time a loss at the start of the Lower State tournament, but they made sure it wouldn’t be anything more than the jolt they needed.
Wednesday night they took the field at Catawba Ridge a win away from the Class AAAA state championship, and behind senior pitcher Katelyn Cochran and a lineup with several key contributors they made the history that they decided a year ago they would make.
Cochran, the Class AAAA Player of the Year, was brilliant in the circle one final time, and the 900th strikeout of her career was the final out in an 8-0 victory that gave North Augusta its long-awaited first state championship.
Once again the tears flowed from the Jackets (33-2), but these ones felt different than any ever experienced by this program.
“It feels amazing. We’ve always had all eyes on us, and we’ve never been able to do it,” said Cochran. “But tonight, we showed who North Augusta was and we played North Augusta softball tonight. The whole team, every girl played their heart out tonight.”
Cochran tossed a one-hit shutout for the second night in a row, this time striking out 11 batters against just one walk. She didn’t hit two home runs like she did in Tuesday’s 4-0 win in the first game of the championship series to set up Wednesday’s clincher, but she didn’t need to. Eight different Jackets recorded a hit, and they kept the pressure on Catawba Ridge throughout the game by producing timely offense.
“I just knew if we could get one, it would kind of open up the gates a little bit for us,” said head coach Craig Gilstrap. “It finally did.”
Audri Bates provided the big blast in the top of the third inning with a two-out, two-run home run to break a scoreless tie and snap a slump at the plate for the Jackets’ top hitter during the regular season.
“It was amazing,” said Bates, who after crossing home plate blew a kiss to a vocal group of Catawba Ridge fans. “I was really frustrated with myself at the plate, obviously, (in the Lower State championship against Hartsville). Everyone knows I was in a little bit of a hitting slump since playoffs. I wanted to make this special for my team, like I said last time. I wanted to pull through, and I wanted to get things going. It’s always a domino effect.”
The next domino to fall came in the next two at-bats. All-State selection Nevaeh Ross doubled, then came home when Haidyn Hutto did the same.
That gave North Augusta a 3-0 lead midway through the third inning and, as it has been for the better part of four years, that was more than enough run support for Cochran.
Audrey Wilson’s leadoff double in the fourth inning was the only hit the Copperheads (26-6) would muster, and after that they only had two base runners - one when Wilson was hit by a pitch in the sixth, and another when Kendra Murray reached on an error in the seventh.