4A high school softball playoffs: Flyers fly past Devils before being ousted

TAYLORSVILLE — The Dixie Flyers soared past Springville in the one-loss bracket of the 4A state softball tournament, riding a productive fourth inning to their 9-5 victory over the Red Devils on Wednesday.

The first three innings found the teams playing even softball as they went into the fourth deadlocked at 3-3.

Springville scored a pair in the top of the first on singles by Sarah Clark and Keeli Chalk and a two-run double by Aria Agle. But Dixie evened things up in the bottom of the inning with singles off the bats of Jaelle Judkins and Sheila Gelter and a double from Mikkel Griffin.

The Red Devils added another on singles from Holli Averett and Clark and a double by Chalk, while Dixie scored its third run on a single from Stephanie Gelter and another by Judkins. And then the Red Devils took their final lead of the game after Clark hit her third single and sophomore catcher Brittany McCray crushed the ball over the left-center fence for a two-run homer.

But that was the last good news the Red Devils would see, as Dixie picked up five runs in the bottom of the fourth to put the game out of reach, even for the normally red hot Springville bats.

After Stephanie Gelter reached on an error, Trisha McArthur smacked an RBI double to really get things on a roll. Judkins walked, Sheila Gelter added her own two-run double, and Griffin finished things off with a two-run homer to left center.

Another Dixie score in the bottom of the fifth sealed things even further for the Flyers, who went on to lose to Bountiful 10-2 and were thus eliminated in the next round of the one-loss bracket.

Meanwhile, the Red Devils, who finished second in the 2007 state championship, headed home after the loss, leaving coach Karl Jensen with fond memories of this team, even after the final loss.

"We just didn't execute defensively, and they just hit the ball hard in the fourth inning. We never recovered with our bats. We hit the ball hard to get people on base, but we didn't hit the ball to score runs," Jensen lamented.

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E-mail: jolsen@desnews.com

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