The King’s Fork High School softball team initially hurt its playoff chances with a 5-0 home loss to Hickory High School on Tuesday, but it bounced back against a potential rival for the final playoff spot with an 8-1 victory over host Deep Creek High School on Wednesday.

“Took the edge off a little bit,” Lady Bulldogs head coach Richard Froemel said after Wednesday’s game. “(We’ve) still got Lakeland. We don’t want to let our guard down against them. We want to be winning going into the tournament.”

Going into Wednesday’s game, Froemel described its stakes: “This game today against Deep Creek, in my eyes, is really our season, because Deep Creek’s in the same boat as we are.”

King’s Fork’s post-season is still not a certainty, but Wednesday’s win pushed it to 10-7 in the district and essentially eliminated the Lady Hornets from contention.

Sophomore Sydney Wash came up big with 13 strikeouts, but the offense did not get going until the final inning. In the first four innings, King’s Fork left eight runners on base.

Deep Creek scored in the bottom of the sixth to tie the game 1-1. The Lady Bulldogs loaded the bases in the seventh and then began to rack up the runs.

Sophomore Jasmine Holloman concluded the inning by hitting a double that knocked in three runs. She went 2-for-4 for the game.

Junior Ashley Roten was 3-for-5, junior Kayla Jones was 2-for-4 and sophomore Kirsten Wuchter was also 2-for-4.

On Tuesday against Hickory, the Lady Bulldogs kept it close, trailing only 2-0 in the seventh. But then a Lady Hawks batter produced a three-run home run to break the game open.

King’s Fork exhibited problems similar to those present in the Deep Creek game.

“We had runners on, I think, every inning, we just couldn’t get them around to score,” Froemel said.

The Lady Bulldogs (12-7, 10-7) will learn details of their playoff situation today and will close their regular season on Friday at home against Lakeland High School.