Prep Softball: East Coweta, Northgate eliminated in Elite 8
From Staff Reportssports@newnan.com
COLUMBUS —The East Coweta Lady Indians and the Northgate Lady Vikings are headed home from the GHSA Elite 8 softball tournament earlier than either team had hoped.
Both squads were eliminated in the loser's bracket Friday.
The news wasn't so good for Northgate either, after the Lady Vikings suffered a loss in their first loser's bracket game of the tournament to get sent home by Greenbrier in a 12-11 loss.
After falling 8-0 to Lassiter in five innings Thursday, the East Coweta Lady Indians began coming back through the loser's bracket Friday with a 2-1 victory over Hillgrove Friday morning.
That set up a meeting between the Lady Indians and Mill Creek. There was plenty of history between the Indians and the Lady Hawks at the Elite 8. Mill Creek knocked off East Coweta twice in 2008, including in the championship round.
This time, East Coweta got the best of Mill Creek, winning its second one-run game of the day, 1-0 on Shemiah Sanchez's walk-off home run.
With the win, the Lady Indians moved into third game of the day, falling to Kennesaw Mountain 3-2. Kennesaw Mountain knocked Lassiter out of the tournament after handing the Lady Trojans their second loss of the day.
East Coweta senior Megan Chocallo made the most of her final high school game with seven strikeouts. Kia Smith and Reba Jones had RBIs for the Lady Indians in the final game.
The Lady Indians ended their season with a 33-5-1 record.
Greenbrier ended Northgate's chances of winning a second straight GHSA softball title with an 12-11 victory over the Lady Vikings in the losers bracket of the GHSA Class AAAAA Elite 8 tourney.
The Lady Vikings' loss to Greenbrier came less than 24 hours after falling to Loganville 4-3 in eight innings.
The Greenbrier-Northgate match up turned into an offensive shootout. The Lady Wolf Packout out hit the Lady Vikings 16-11 en route to the victory.
Northgate built a 4-0 lead after three innings, but was unable to hold the lead. Greenbrier scored all of its runs over the final four innings, including a four-run outburst in the fifth and plating five runs in the sixth.
The Lady Vikings trailed 11-9 heading into the top of the seventh inninng, but senior Andie Martin belted a two-run homer scoring Brenna Skalski to tie the game.
Greenbrier, however, won the game in the bottom of the seventh when McMonigle drove in Holt with the game winner.
Ebonee Echols drove in three RBIs and belted a homer to help pace the Lady Vikings offense. Martin also finished with three RBIs in her final game in high school. Echols ended the game with two hits and two runs scored.
Skalski had three hits and an RBI from her lead-off spot. Casey Kent and Katie Sachs each had RBIs.
Northgate ends its season with a 29-10 record.
