In a showdown between the best pitcher in Texas and the best pitcher in DFW, Ava Brown and the Montgomery Lake Creek Lions defeated Jensin Hall and the Frisco Heritage Coyotes 9-0 in a UIL Class 5A state semifinal on Friday at McCombs Field in Austin.
Brown, a Florida signee, was voted Gatorade Texas player of the Year last season after leading the Lions to a 41-0 record and the 5A state championship in only the program’s fourth season.
Lake Creek, the No. 1 ranked team in the country, beat Prosper Rock Hill (8-2) and Georgetown (7-0) in last year’s state tournament.
The Lions (43-1) will play in the title game at 1 pm Saturday in Austin.
Heritage ends the season 34-5-1 with its first trip to state. The Coyotes became just the second Frisco ISD school to reach the softball state tournament.
Ahna VanMeter reached on an error and advanced to second, but Brown got a pair of strikeouts and a grounder to third.
Hall went three up and three down and got Brown to pop up to VanMeter at short.
Kailey Sweezey hit a one out single before Brown punched out two more batters in the second. Hall picked up her first strikeout in the bottom of the inning.
The Lions picked up their first hit in the bottom of the third, a single to center from Shelby Winn. Then Maddox McKee hit a high fly ball to deep left that was a hard out for the outfielder. The ball went off her glove and Winn scored for a 1-0 lead.
Samantha Riley hit a hard grounder to center and Heritage put two on with two outs before Brown picked up another strikeout.
Brown finished with three hits allowed, one walk and 10 strikeouts.
The Lions added two more in the fourth.
Lake Creek laid down a bunt and a throwing error to first plated a run. Then a passed ball to the back stop sent another run home to push the lead to 3-0.
Lake Creek pulled away with five runs in the fifth.
Madalyn Davis hit a hard chopper that went past third and into left to make it 5-0. Kalee Rochinski hit a two run double and Winn followed with an RBI single to extend the margin to 8-0.
The Lions scored one more time on an RBI sac fly in the sixth from Brown, who improves to 26-0 this season and 81-0 in her career from the circle.
Meanwhile Hall, who was named DFW Fast Pitch Pitcher of the Year earlier this week, had a rough outing with seven earned runs on 10 hits, no walks and two strikeouts. She ends the year 25-3.
Over the past four games, Hall was more than impressive for the Coyotes, even though she has been like that all season and all career long.
Heritage beat Melissa and Frisco Lone Star 1-0 in back to back one game playoffs during the regional semifinals and regional final. Hall and the Coyotes beat Frisco Wakeland 2-0 in both Game 2 and 3 in the regional quarterfinals.
During that stretch, Hall threw 26 innings, allowing 11 hits, zero runs and striking out 41 batters.
It seemed like time finally caught up to Hall on Friday against Lake Creek.
The nine runs are the most Heritage has given up in a single game all season. In fact, the Coyotes haven’t given up that many in one game in over two years.
Hall entered Friday having given up seven earned runs this season overall.
But one game doesn’t define her.
She put together one of the most dominant careers in history. According to the team’s Max Preps page, Hall came into the game with a 0.34 ERA this season and 1.18 ERA for her career.
She went 75-11 overall and 52-5 in the past two seasons.
She had 380 strikeouts this season and 926 in her career. Hall hurled 33 shutouts and 16 no hitters during her junior and senior years combined.
