Gordon College run-rules Lady Govs
 
By Nathaniel Frazier
For the Eagle
 
OXFORD—It got ugly early. And it got ugly late. In the middle innings, the Wallace Lady Govs were able to go toe-to-toe with the Gaston College Rhinos in the Oxford tournament. In the end, it was the beginning and the end that cost the Wallace Lady Govs the game. Playing against the Golston College Rhinos, the Lady Govs fell 17-9 in a run shortened game.

And that was only part of the story. This game could easily be described as "defense optional". That's because there were as many errors as there were hits by both teams.

Only 12 of the Rhinos runs were earned. Wallace committed six errors—and that's only the ones that are officially counted as errors. There were numerous fly balls on the infield and the outfield that weren't counted as errors because they weren't touched by a defender.

The Rhinos quickly jumped out to a 9-0 lead, They scored five runs in the first inning and four more in the second. The five runs in the first inning came on only two hits. There were three walks, two errors, and one misplayed fly ball that wasn't called an error.

The 9-0 lead made it seem like this game was going to end quickly. But then Wallace found life. First, the Lady Govs scored two runs in the top of the third, then matched the five innings the Rhinos scored in the first inning with five of their own in the fourth inning. They also scored two runs in the fifth. What had been a nine-run lead was now down to a single run, 10-9.

That's when things got ugly again. The Rhinos scored seven unanswered runs in the final two innings to account for the final score.

"I think we got off to a really rough start with a lot of walks and errors," said Gov coach David Dews. "A lot of those runs were unearned especially early on. I thought our kids did a good job of working the count. executing the offense, and getting good pitches to hit."

"We played signs of good ball when we didn't walk people or make errors. We made a good comeback. We fought our way all the way back then we just fell apart again."

The Govs will play Saturday at noon against McLennan and 2 pm against Shelton State.