Bartow Shuts Out Jenkins for 7A-7 Softball Title

Sat. April 21, 2012 at 4:58 p.m. | By Polk Preps Staff

Bartow's Taylor Wagner (13) congratulates Shelby Duncan after scoring against George Jenkins on Saturday afternoon. (Photo by GEORGE AYCRIGG | SPECIAL TO THE LEDGER )

By MIKE AKINS

Ledger Correspondent

The Yellow Jackets scored all their runs in the fifth inning and Lauren West held George Jenkins in check with a one-hitter in a 4-0 victory over the Eagles in the Class 7A, District 7 championship on Saturday. 

"For us to continue forward, I would love for her (West) to pitch the way she pitched today." Rutenbar said.

West finished with nine strikeouts.

With the win, the Yellow Jackets (23-4) will play host to Plant City in a regional quarterfinal Wednesday night. The Eagles (17-8) will go on the road to play Tampa Riverview the same night.

After the scheduled Friday night game was rained out, there was talk about pushing the game to Monday because of predicted bad weather, but the rain stayed away.

West came across some anxious moments in the fourth inning as she allowed a double and a sacrifice but struck out the next two batters to get out of the inning.

"We had our chances in that inning but she was last year's pitcher of the year for a reason." Eagles interim coach Jerry May said. "Despite what happened, we are still playing and I told the girls that we went through the motions last year and it gave us a loss (Osceola), so it will not happen this year."

May coached in place of Jeff Lang, who thought the game was to be played on Monday and went out of town for the weekend.

Bartow sent eight batters to the plate in the fifth inning scoring four runs on four hits and two errors.

Shelby Duncan, Cheyenne Blaha and Rachael Imig all drove in runs.

"When we can keep the ball in play, we can score some runs." Bartow coach Glenn Rutuenbar said. "We have been up and down with our hitting all year."

Bartow recorded 11 hits on the day.

Imig led Bartow as she went 3-for-4 and Reeann Davis went 2-for-3 with one run scored.

"We have a good pitcher (Lauren Harris) but they have good hitters so good hitting beat good pitching today." May added. 

Bartow                                         000  040  0 -- 4 11  1

George Jenkins                             000  000  0 --  0   1  2

WP: Lauren West. LP: Lauren Harris. 2B: Davis, Imig (B), Morse (GJ). Records: Bartow 23-4, George Jenkins 17-8.