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| Katelyn Jones winds up during a 10-inning loss to West Forsyth. |
Earlier in the week, the War Eagles lost 8-5 in 10 innings to visiting West Forsyth. That was a painful Central Piedmont Conference loss that put Davie under must-win pressure at East if it was going to share second with the Titans. The next day Davie was knocked around, 9-6, in a nonconference game at West Rowan.
Then Davie fell behind 2-0 in the first inning at East. A loss and Davie drops to fourth place. But pitcher Katelyn Jones and the War Eagles didn’t flinch at East’s quick two-run homer. Instead of winding up in the middle of the pack for the sixth straight year, a bummer of a finish was turned into a defining moment - eight unanswered runs for the highest CPC finish since 2001, the year before Janice Jackson took over as head coach.
The first win over East in eight meetings was also a gratifying reward for a team that endured a superior schedule.
“Instead of expecting not to win, all of a sudden they finally felt like they could win,” Jackson said. “Before the game (assistant coach) Angie (Williams) said: ‘I’ve got a good feeling about this game.’ I said: ‘Yeah, me too.’ The bottom of the lineup came through, and everybody hit the ball.”
Davie put it all together, outhitting East by a whopping 15-7, achieving balance on offense (eight players had hits, and five players had multiple hits) and getting six consecutive shutout innings from Jones, who squared her record at 4-4 to go with a nice 1.86 ERA.
“We had situations all year where we fell behind and then struggled,” assistant Robbie Jackson said. “That’s one of the first times that we played solid from then on out. We didn’t get nervous. We’ve played a lot of teams that are 14-4, 15-6 and things like that. I think that ... subscribe to the Davie County Enterprise Record, P.O. Box 99, Mocksville, N.C. 27028.