UNIONVILLE — During their regular season meetings, the Forrest Lady Rockets and Community Viqueens split, each winning a one-run game.
During their winner’s bracket final meeting on Tuesday night, Forrest relied on an excellent small ball game plan to advance to the District 7-AA championship with a 7-2 win over the tournament’s No. 1 seed.
“We talked about if we could get a run an inning, at the end of the game, that’s seven runs. Even in those pressure situations, we’re a pretty fast team. Even if they know it’s coming, you have to make a good throw, a good catch, a good tag—all of it,” Lady Rocket coach Shelby Lightfoot said.
“Just really been working on that small ball game, just in big games and big situations for down the road.”
After an error allowed Macyn Kirby to safely reach base in the game’s first at-bat, she later scampered around the bases and on sac-bunt by Christa Warren.
From there, the game settled into a pitcher’s duel between Lady Rocket starter Ella Chilton and Community starter Annie Prince.
Both pitchers went on to pitch three-straight scoreless innings until Kirby drew a one-out walk in the top of the fifth inning.
She scored in the next at-bat when Taylor Moreland reached on an error in the Viqueen infield.
Warren followed her on base with a single to left and then Chilton called her own number and knocked in two more runs on a single to right, giving Forrest at 4-0 lead.
The Viqueens got a run back in the bottom on a RBI single off the bat of Chloe West to cut the Forrest lead to three runs.
But the game took a scary turn in the top of the sixth inning.
With one out, Viqueen starting pitcher Annie Prince took a comebacker off her foot and immediately hit the dirt.
She did not return to the game.
Forrest went on to get the run back later in the inning on a sac-bunt by Moreland.
The Lady Rockets got another run off another sac-bunt in the seventh and then Maggie Daughrity stole home on a wild pitch for the final Forrest run of the game.
Chilton was plenty effective in the pitcher’s circle, going seven innings and allowing two runs on five hits to go along with two strikeouts.
“We felt like even at the beginning of the year, we had a good staff. We just kept messing up a little bit. Just fine tuning our craft and hitting our spots better so the defense can play behind them. Ella did a better job of attacking. She still walked a few that we would like for her to get together, but overall, she kept the ball down well and kept us in the game,” Lightfoot said.
In addition to several sacrifices, the Lady Rockets belted out seven hits and saw Daughrity and Chilton each hammer out a pair of base hits.
“We just have to continue to hit the ball. We feel like moving in that our pitching is throwing well, they keep us in a ball game. In the postseason, keep people under five runs. Offensively, we’re expecting to score five runs and when we don’t that’s on us,” Lightfoot said.
The win advances Forrest to the District 7-AA championship, which is scheduled to be held on Thursday night against the winner of Community and Cascade, which will be played on Wednesday night.
“Pitching wise, they have to come in and attack. We still have to do a better job of some timely hits in big situations, or even some two-out hits. We’ll continue to work on that and hopefully we’ll come in and give them a good game,” Lightfoot said.

Forrest 100 031 2 — 7 7 2
Community 000 010 1 — 2 5 4

Forrest: Macyn Kirby 1-for-3, Abby Ferguson 2-for-3, Ella Chilton 2-for-3, Maggie Daughrity 2-for-4.

WP: Chilton
LP: Prince