By Titus Mohler

Correspondent

A softball season of unprecedented success for King’s Fork came to an end on Tuesday night after they lost 4-0 to Hickory High School in the semifinals of the Southeastern District Tournament.

Though it was a disappointing result for the fourth-ranked Lady Bulldogs, this was the first time they had ever reached the second round of the SED tourney.

Coach Richard Froemel was clear in crediting Hickory, which has a notorious history of eliminating King’s Fork from this event.

“Well, Hickory’s a great opponent,” Froemel said. “I’m not taking anything from them. Of course, they had a great game throwing the ball.”

Hickory appeared to be headed for a no-hitter until right-fielder Autumn Vick tripled in the seventh inning. However, following that, third baseman Niki Cuevas struck out. Then, catcher Taylor Davis hit a pop fly that was caught for an out and Vick, who had broken for home, was caught out at third to end the game.

Aside from Hickory’s strong pitching, the deciding factor for the Lady Bulldogs was defensive errors.

“We had some mental mistakes,” Froemel said. “I don’t know if we were a hundred percent focused going into the game. A couple throwing errors and all really hurt us, letting them get in there and get on early in the inning.”

Sydney Wash, who had four strikeouts for the game, walked the first batter in the first inning. The next batter bunted and made it to second base after Cuevas threw wide of first. Another bunt loaded the bases, but Davis managed to hold the first batter at third.

The scoring started, however, after the next batter hit a pop fly to centerfield. Megan Blythe caught it for an out, but the runner on third had scored. The next batter got tagged out at first but not before another run came in.

Hickory got two more runs in the second inning to arrive at the game’s final score.

“You face a Hickory team like this (that’s) got playoff experience, you got to be on your “A” game,” Froemel said.

Froemel said that his team had struggled at times during the regular season, but never to the degree that it did in this game.

“In a game like this, you can’t have two innings like that back-to-back and that has never happened during the season,” he said. “It’s usually been one and we since got it out of our system, but couldn’t shake this one.”

The loss was particularly disappointing, since the Lady Bulldogs had defeated Hickory 1-0 earlier this month, a first in Froemel’s coaching tenure at Kings Fork.

Looking back on the season, Froemel was pleased at the team’s improving performance as the year went on and the potential for the future, highlighting the play of Sydney Wash.

“I thought the season went well,” he said. “(We) had a freshman pitcher come in and of the eight wins (she had), seven of them were shutouts. She performed well. Our bats came on (sporadically), got more consistent.”

The Lady Bulldogs finished the season with a record of 15-7.