McComb fastpitch softball coach Kristi Bird said she would remember this season for the effort turned in by her team.
“The girls knew they had something special here,” Bird said, “and they put the work into it.”
The Lady Tigers’ state championship hopes were shut down Saturday in an 11-7 loss to Long Beach in the opening round of the Class 5A state playoffs at Sammy Clark Field.
The visiting Lady Bearcats completed the two-game sweep of McComb. They also beat the Lady Tigers 3-1 on Friday night at Long Beach.
Long Beach will advance to the South State championship series beginning Tuesday against an undetermined opponent.
On Saturday, the Lady Bearcats (21-2) took advantage of five defensive errors and two key baserunning mistakes by McComb (12-6).
Long Beach pitcher Ali McCaleb was touched for 12 hits, but the Lady Tigers had just three hits in the final three innings, all in the seventh.
The Lady Bearcats took a 1-0 lead in the first inning. They added to the lead in the second inning, which was capped by Brooke Moran’s two-run single and an RBI single from Savannah French that made it 4-0.
McComb got on the board in the second inning on an Annie Artigues line-drive single to center that plated Kamry Creel. Desiree Mallery later scored on a passed ball to make it 4-2.
Britton Ross’ one-out solo home run started a three-run third inning that stretched Long Beach’s lead to 7-2. Tori Jordan added an RBI single, and Moran drove in a run with an infield groundout.
After struggling in the early innings, McComb starting pitcher Megan Coney settled in. She retired the Lady Bearcats in order in the fourth inning, then pitched around a leadoff hit batsman in the fifth.
Meanwhile, the Lady Tigers’ offense got on track.
With one out in the fourth, Price walked and advanced to second when Artigues reached on an error. A walk to Coney loaded the bases.
Danielle Farnum hit a slow roller to Long Beach third baseman Courtney Davis, who unsuccessfully tried to tag Price heading home. Her subsequent try to tag third base to force Artigues also was late.
Casey Brumfield followed with a sacrifice fly to score Artigues and pull the Lady Tigers to within 7-4. Talbert’s infield single scored Coney to make it 7-5.
McComb got to within 7-6 in the fifth when Price walked with one out, went to second on Artigues’ infield groundout and scored when Coney’s sharp grounder went off the glove of shortstop Moran and into left field.
But Long Beach got an RBI double from Ross and a McComb fielding error allowed the Lady Bearcats to stretch their lead to 9-6.
Long Beach made it 11-6 in the top of the seventh on a single by Davis, a McComb throwing error and McCoy’s sacrifice fly.
