After a promising start to the postseason, Benton Academy’s softball season ended on Saturday at the North AA State Tournament.
Things looked bright early on in the morning when the Lady Raiders faced West Memphis, a team hey had previously beat.
According to Benton Academy head softball coach Adam Dixon, the Lady Raiders were both excited and confident heading into the first game.
“I think West Memphis is a lot like us,” Dixon said. “They’re a pretty young team. They have a pitcher that is an 8th or 9th grader, and they have a couple of older girls mixed in with all of the younger girls. We thought we could beat them, and we came into it with a lot of confidence.”
In the first inning, the Lady Raiders capitalized on timely hits and a series of walks to go up 6-0.
West Memphis responded with two runs in the bottom of the inning to cut Benton’s lead to 6-2.
In the bottom of the second inning, West Memphis struck again, cutting the Benton lead to 6-4 with two more runs.
The deficit stayed put after the third inning as each team was able to put only one run, making it 7-5.
The offense for the Lady Raiders started back up in the fourth inning, where they score three more runs to make it a 10-5 game.
After scoring six runs in the fifth inning, the game ended with Benton on top 16-5.
There was a reversal of fortunes for Benton in game number two on the day against a tough Winona Christian team.
Winona struck first in the second inning, where they put up eight runs
Benton got on the board with a run by Catie Merrell in the fourth inning, but Winona matched it in the bottom of the inning, making the score 9-1.
The Stars put the final touches of the game in the sixth inning with two more runs, ending the game at 11-1.
The loss put Benton in the loser’s bracket, where they met Delta Academy in a must win game for each team.
After a scoreless first inning, Delta Academy kicked off the festivities with three runs to take an early lead.
The Lady Raiders returned fire with a run in each of the following innings, cutting the lead to 3-2.
Winona, however, would score three more in the bottom of the sixth inning to give them a commanding 6-2 lead.
In the final inning, the Lady Raiders made one final push.
Lauren McCoy led things off with a single and was eventually brought home, but it was not enough.
The Lady Raiders fell 6-3, eliminating them from the tournament.
Despite a somewhat abrupt end to the season, it was a rousing success when compared to their original goal as a team.
Their first goal, after all, was just to win two games.
“We sat down early in the season and made some goals,” Dixon said. “I wanted them to be realistic goals. The first thing they wanted to do was win more games than they did a year ago.”
The Lady Raiders accomplished their first goal relatively quickly, winning multiple games at Canton’s softball tournament to surpass the mere one game they won a year ago.
That meant it was time to go back to the drawing board.
“After the Canton tournament, we sat back down to make more goals. They wanted to win more than five games, not finish last in our division and make the north half tournament. That’s how it went all season. We would complete a goal and add a new one. That’s how our season went.”
Youth was probably the biggest factor in Benton’s struggles this year.
With youth comes inexperience, and with inexperience comes struggles.
Dixon fought that this year, but results came.
“We grew up a lot this year,” Dixon said. “Having no seniors and only two juniors, we had to grow up both on the field and mentally.That’s a huge part of it. You can’t always win. A baseball player can hit .300 for his career and make the Hall of Fame. That means he failed 70% of the time. That’s the mentally we’ve had to acquire, and I think we did a good job of that this year.”
The biggest thing that the Lady Raiders received throughout the year was experience and the ability to learn.
Dixon believes those things will serve them well in the near future.
“I can’t say that I have expectations for next year yet,” Dixon said. “I’m looking forward to playing with a more experienced team that has learned how to get better. That’s something you need to learn how to do. We’ll play some summer league games. We have some teams interested, good teams. Some of those teams are still playing now. I like where we’re headed.”
