The Atlee High School varsity softball team rode a wave of emotions Saturday. The team went from euphoric after winning the Central Region semifinal against Midlothian to advance to this week’s state tournament, then two hours later they had their ups and downs in the final against Prince George. Though the Lady Raiders fell 3-2 on a last inning rally, the team fully expects to regroup for the next round of playoffs.

  “I think to be able to come in and play Midlo and come away with a win in the first game just was way positive, and really, they were excited and all that,” Atlee head coach John Early said. “The break in between kind of just slows you down a little bit, but we just really didn’t play real well in this game. I thought we did fine at the plate, hit the ball and scored a couple runs, but defensively, man, that was pretty ugly for us.”

  Atlee scored first in the regional final. With one out and two on in the first inning, Randi Farrar sent a grounder into shallow left field for a single. The throw to home was close but Lauren Saller was ruled safe for a 1-0 lead.
  Prince George came back in the top of the second to tie the game on a single by Taylor Worley.

  The teams stayed at a stalemate until the top of the sixth when Prince George’s Katie Christopher led off with a triple to the right field fence. Adrianna Cook entered the game as a pinch runner and would have to wait just one batter to score the go-ahead run. She slid just under the tag of catcher MacKenzie Keyes on a ground ball to second base.

  The Lady Raiders answered in their half of the inning when Farrar hit a solo homerun over the fence in center. But the Lady Royals took advantage of two bad throws in the seventh to score the winning run.

  “We have several errors,” Early said. “We pretty much had our worst game at the wrong time, or if you look at it the other way, we had it at the right time. We don’t want to have it on Tuesday, so if this is the worst we’re going to play, this is the time to get it out of the way.”

  Farrar led the way for the Lady Raiders offensively with a homerun and two RBI and Saller went 2-for-3 on the day. Elizabeth Holte was the starting pitcher for the Lady Raiders. She fanned four and allowed six hits.

  Pitching through her 21st inning of the day was Lauren Vinson for the Lady Royals. She struck out six and allowed four hits.

  In Atlee’s first game of the day, Farrar drove in the winning runs in the bottom of the first inning with a double to the centerfield fence that scored two. The Lady Raiders scored their final run of the game in the fourth inning when pitcher Jackie Jenkins came around to score on a double to left field by Keyes.

  Jenkins led the way for Atlee on the mound with seven strikeouts. Krista Townsend struck out eight for the Lady Trojans.

  Atlee traveled to South City for the VHSL quarterfinal Tuesday. Scores were not available by press time.

  Sara Page is the sports editor for the Midlothian Exchange.

SEMINFINAL
Midlothian…..............001 000 0 —1 4 1
Atlee ..........................200 100 x — 3 4 1
Townsend and Edmunds; Jenkins and Keyes.
CHAMPIONSHIP
Prince George….........010 001 1 — 3 7 0
Atlee ..........................100 001 0 — 2 5 6
Vinson and Lowe; Holte, Jenkins and Keyes. L: Jenkins.