The Tioga Lady Bulldogs softball team hosted a round-robin tournament Saturday and collected back-to-back wins over Alvord, 13-9, and Graford, 111.
The victories mark the Lady Bulldogs’ second and third wins in a row and bring their season record to 3-2.
“This morning, we came out a little slow, but we flipped a switch and played really hard in the second game against Graford,” Tioga head softball coach Hallie Martin said. “That was the best game that I’ve seen us play this season, thus far, so it gave me really good insight going into our first district game on Tuesday.”
Tioga opened the tournament against Alvord in what turned out to be a high-scoring affair, with Tioga taking the edge in the hitting battle 12-11.
Alvord cracked the scoreboard first when first baseman Ashlynn Sandate hit a ground ball single to center field that allowed second baseman Cheyenne Bell to cross home plate, putting Alvord up 1-0.
Alvord added another run to take a 2-0 lead at the top of the first inning.
Tioga responded with a 10-run explosion, with big hits from first baseman Kyndall Whitley, catcher Zoey Hodge, right fielder Veronica Colmenares, pitcher Kennedy Slay and shortstop Kenzee Powers, taking the lead 10-2 in the bottom of the first inning.
The two teams continued to collect hits and trade runs, with Alvord eventually closing the gap, but Tioga ultimately held on to win 13-9 at the end of regulation.
Tioga pitcher Abbie Benke took the mound for the Lady Bulldogs’ second game and, along with catcher Kaylee Evans, held the Graford Lady Rabbits to three hits and 1 run, while striking out five batters.
“Abby, coming off an injury, did fantastic against a tough team,” Martin said. “Everybody knows that Graford is a good 1A school, and she came out here and took care of business. … Then my other senior, Kaylee Evans, is really working hard behind the plate, and she’s become a leader for our team, which helps us a lot.”
Whitley led Tioga’s offense, going three for three at the plate in the second game and adding three RBIs, followed by Bella Dennis, who went two for three, with two RBIs.
Whitley, who finished with five hits and six RBIs after the two games, credited Martin for the Lady Bulldogs’ strong offensive performance.
“Coach Martin told us to relax and to stop trying to hit the ball over the fence and just put it in play so we could move the runners, and that really helped a lot,” she said.
Benke, who is one of the Lady Bulldogs’ two seniors, along with Evans, said she was encouraged by the growth she saw from her team while playing in the tournament.
“Our team mushed together a little bit better today, and we saw the result of that,” she said. “We were struggling earlier because we’re such a young team. We only have two seniors this year, and playing with so many new faces can be hard, but we’re handling it really well. You can see it by how we're playing and how the score ends up every single game.”
Tioga followed their tournament wins with a 15-3 loss against the Trenton Lady Tigers on Tuesday night, The Lady Bulldogs were scheduled to travel to Blue Ridge to play in the Brooke Deckard Tournament Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
The results were not available by press time.
