County Teams Make It To Championships

6/26/08
By: Clint Cox

Jackson County was well represented in each of the respective Dixie Girls softball District championship games that concluded this past Monday night at the Optimist Park / M.E.R.E.. The county placed a team in each championship round of the three divisions (Angels, Ponytails 7 Belles). Unfortunately of the three teams that made it to that final round, only one will be headed to the State Tournament as the District Champion. The other two squads battled hard but had to settle for the district runner up spots.
Dixie Angels (8,9, & 10 yr. olds)
The Marianna Angels All Star squad captured the District Championship with a 14-3 win over Franklin County. That sets up a trip to the State Tournament in Belleview, Florida. The tournament starts on July 3rd. Marianna was forced into a second game on Monday night after falling 13-11 to Franklin County earlier in the evening. The Marianna All Stars opened up the tournament with a 24-12 win over Franklin County on Thursday night. They followed that up with a 31-14 win over Sneads on Friday night. That sent them to the championship round on Monday for their eventual two game matchup with Franklin County.
The Sneads All Stars beat Port St. Joe 26-9 on Thursday night. After falling to Marianna on Friday night, Sneads fell to Franklin County 9-2 on Saturday and were eliminated from tournament play.
Dixie Ponytails (11 & 12 yr. olds)
The Marianna All Stars got off to a good start by beating Franklin County by the 10 run rule in four innings. They came back on Friday night to square off against a very good Port St. Joe squad. Jordan Hussey gave Marianna a 2-0 lead in the third inning with a 2 RBI inside the park home run. Port St. Joe rallied though to score two runs in the bottom of the sixth to capture a 3-2 victory. Marianna then took on Sneads on Saturday and posted a win over the Lady Pirates to advance to the Championship round. On Monday they faced a rematch with Port St. Joe and needed to win two games to capture the title. Game one went Marianna’s way by a score of 5-2 as Breanna Willis was the winning pitcher. Game two saw Port St. Joe jump out ahead by a score of 7-0. Marianna battled back to make it 8-3 after five innings. In the bottom of the sixth, still trailing 8-3, Marianna managed to plate two more runs and load the bases. But their rally came up short and they fell by a final of 8-5.
The Sneads All Starts opened up the tournament with a 16-5 loss to Port St. Joe. They bounced back with a 15-9 win over Franklin County on Friday night. Sneads trailed 4-2 before coming back to tie the game at 4-4. They then took a 5-4 lead before Franklin County tied the game at 5-5. From their though Sneads outscored Franklin County 10-4 to post a 6 run victory. On Saturday they fell 10-0 to Marianna and were eliminated from the tournament.
Dixie Belles (13 & 14 yr. olds)
The Grand Ridge Belles got off to a good start with a 18-3 win over Chattahoochee on Thursday night. They took an early 5-0 lead and then added four more in the second inning to lead 9-1. From there they added another 9 runs in the third and fourth inning.
On Friday night they fell to Franklin County by a score of 5-1. Franklin got two quick runs in the first inning and Grand Ridge countered with one in the bottom. From there Franklin added 3 more runs to post the four run victory. Grand Ridge bounced back with a 11-7 win over Port St. Joe on Saturday. Port St. Joe grabbed an early 5-3 lead but Grand Ridge rallied to take a 6-5 lead in the third inning. Another run was plated in the fourth inning to make it a 7-5 game. After Port St. Joe tied the game at 7-7, the Grand Ridge squad posted four runs in the final inning for the 11-7 win.
That set up a rematch on Monday night against Franklin County for the championship. Grand Ridge needed two wins and got the first one with a 8-4 victory. Game two saw Franklin County jump out to an early lead and lead big for much of the game. Grand Ridge began to battle back late in the game and came back to tie the game 13-13 in the bottom of the seventh inning. But in the eighth inning Franklin County posted 3 runs and then held Grand Ridge in the bottom of the inning to claim a 16-13 district championship win.