Dragons sew up district title

Purcell put a bow on the District Championship with a 10-0 run-rule victory over Ada on Senior Night.

The victory hiked the Dragons’ league mark to 12-1 pending a make up district game with Pauls Valley Wednesday. The game was originally scheduled for Tuesday but was washed out by the rain.

The Dragons were 22-7 heading into the Pauls Valley game.

The game was 3-0 heading into the bottom of the fifth when the Dragon bats went off for seven runs to end the contest.

We wanted to make things a little exciting and brought it all together in the fifth,” head coach Sarah Jones said.

Mac McKay had a big night going 3-3 with an RBI.

“Senior Kelly Anderson made her senior night worth it, hitting a single with an RBI and then her last at-bat hitting a shot to right field for a triple and getting  three RBI’s,” Jones said.

The veteran coach also got hits that game from Hannah Whitaker, Brynley Jennings and Payci Constant.

KK Vazquez stroked an in-the-park home run that pushed across a pair of runs. Both Jennings and McKay had triples in the victory.

“It was a great senior night,” the coach said.

Last week the Dragons socked away a pair of district victories with a 10-0 run-rule victory over Byng on September 11 led by Whitaker’s 2-2 outing at the plate.

Savannah Edwards, Ella Resendiz and Kailynn Helton all had two RBIs each in the game. Whitaker and Helton both had doubles while Hadleigh Harp spanked an RBI triple.

“This was a rainy mess but the girls got the job done,” Jones said. “We wanted to make sure that we fit this game in so late in the season and we were able to make it happen. It took us a little bit to get going but we scored in the first inning but couldn’t really get going until the fourth.”

That’s when they pushed across nine big runs to finish off the run-rule.

Purcell had to go to extra innings to knock off the Dickson Comets on the road for a key district victory September 12.

Purcell drew first blood with a Vazquez home run in the top of the fourth only to have Dickson come back and knot the score at one-all in the bottom of the fifth.

In the top of the eighth Purcell cut loose to push across three runs before holding Dickson in the bottom of the frame to win 4-1.

Resendiz fanned 11 Comet hitters but it was the defensive play of Harp’s that sent the game into extras.

In the bottom of the seventh Dickson had a couple of base runners when they got a base hit up the middle for an apparent game winning single.

But Harp roped a throw to the plate nailing the base runner and allowing the extra frame.

“That was another game we took a while to figure it out but made some really good adjustments and defensive plays,” the coach said.

The next three games were tough losses for the Dragons including 9-2 to Tuttle, 8-6 against Mustang and 2-1 against Westmoore.

At times it took us going through the lineup in order to make a better adjustment against three really good pitchers,” Jones said.

“All three games we hit the ball pretty well but couldn’t string them all together. We left 41 runners on base in just three games. We have to be able to get the clutch hit and we have to back up our pitchers.

“We have given up too many unearned runs either by a physical error or mental mistake,” she said.

Over the three games McKay had five hits, Resendiz and Whitaker with four each, Vazquez had three, Helton a pair and hits from Kenna Esparza, Jennings, Constant and Edwards.