Strong Start for HCMS Lady Brave Softball

(Franklin, GA) — The Heard County Middle School softball team won two more games this week to push their season record to 5-1 and small school league record to a perfect 5-0.

The most exciting win of the season came in comeback fashion on Tuesday as the Lady Braves downed rival Bowdon 8-4 after trailing for most of the game.

Bowdon led 4-1 before the homestanding Lady Braves exploded for seven runs in the bottom of the fifth inning to take the win.

Aubree Ussery, Chloe Scarbrough, and Braleigh Watkins led the offense in the win while it was starting pitcher LilyRae Fulford betting the win on the mound.

Fulford tossed six innings allowing just one earned run and striking out six. Scarbrough and Watkins each had a hit, a run scored and two RBI’s while Ussery had two hits including a double. and drove home one.

HCMS Lady Brave pitcher LilyRae Fulford (L) and catcher Makenlie Lasseter (R)

Fulford, Makenlie Lasseter, and Jayden Boykin also had big hits in the win with Kaleigh Blair, Alexia Lower, Chloe Cummings each scoring runs.

On Thursday, it was a potent offense and more solid pitching that led to an 18-0 win over an over-matched Villa Rica squad in three innings.

Natalie Schneider started the game and was sharp in her two innings of work in the circle. She allowed no hits and walked just one while strucking out four Wildcat batters.

Chloe Scarborough closed it out in the third inning while allowing just one hit and fanning two.

At the plate, Alexia Lower had a huge day with two doubles, two runs scored and four RBI’s. Scarbrough also drove home four and scored twice.

Jayden Boykin had a triple and Carolyne Garcia came up big with a hit, and RBI, and two runs scored.

Arianna Brice, Ella Coleman, Schneider, Watkins, Andi Spradlin, Emily Mock, Maddie Denney, Sarah Hannah, and Kenaria Pless each scored at least one run.

Top Lady Brave hitters for the season have been Chloe Scarbrough (.500 average, 9 RBI’s, 1 triple), Emily Mock (.500 average, 8 runs, 5 RBI’s), Ussery (.571 average, 2 doubles, 5 runs), Boykin (.400 average, 1 double, 1 triple, 7 runs), and Lasseter (.400 average, 7 walks).

Head coach Alicia Carroll says her squad faced some early struggles working as a team but have started to come around as of late.

“We’ve played well but we have really had to stress to worm as a team. We’ve had a lot of people wanting to play separate and play for themselves so we’ve had to work a lot on being a family,” said Carroll after Tuesday’s win over Bowdon. “We struggled and were a little nervous there for a while against Bowdon, but the girls have realized we have to just take it one pitch at a time and you could see they really bought into that in the second half of the game.”

The HCMS Lady Braves travel to Temple Tuesday before returning to Heard Middle on Thursday to face Carrollton. They then close out the regular season with a home game versus Mt. Zion on Sept. 24 and a road game rematch at Bowdon on Sept. 26. All middle school softball games start at 5:00 PM.