Camp Verde Cowboys softball rallies late, loses title game

Camp Verde High School’s No. 2 seeded softball team’s late rally fell short in a 7-3 loss in the Conference 2A state championship game to No. 1 Benson High School at Arizona State University’s Farrington Softball Stadium on May 8.

The Cowboys [19-1, 9-0 Central Region] fell in the title game for the second time in three seasons, while Benson [22-0, 12-0 East Region] won its second consecutive championship. Camp Verde did not get its first hit until the top of the fifth inning, when the Bobcats had already built a 5-0 lead. Benson added two more in the home half of the frame, and the Cowboys’ comeback effort ended up being too little, too late.

“It’s a game of chance, a little bit of luck and anticipation, and I think they anticipated a couple of pitches, and Jacy [Finley] pitched a very good game,” Cowboys head coach Henry Smith said. “They’re a good team, they’re No. 1 for a reason. They’re undefeated for a reason. You’ve got to give all the credit to them, they brought it and they held true to their ranking. It’s tough to beat a team like that and to give up a couple errors like we did, it makes it even harder. We’ve proven the old thing that errors lose games, we did that and they also came and brought it. The combination, it’s tough to beat that.”

The mental side of the game proved to be the toughest obstacle.

Camp Verde put together eight scoreless innings between the end of the quarterfinal and a semifinal shutout of
No. 3 Willcox High School. It had given up just two runs throughout the entire state tournament; it gave up three to the Bobcats in the first inning.

Benson’s first five runs were scored with two outs already recorded, its final two the product of errors.
“It’s having young players and that’s one thing, is time on task, it’s something Coach Susan [Holm] talked about all season, we need that,” Henry Smith said. “This offseason we’re going to get the girls to spend some more time on the field and take care of those little minor errors and maybe delay in reaction. We can fix that stuff in the offseason, and come back and we’ll have the same strategy again, it got us here. We just need to figure out how to control our minds and maturity, we need to grow up a little bit and that’s going to happen with time, and we’ll be back, we’ll be back to make another run.”

Bobcats freshman first baseman Emily Darwin and junior catcher Abby Workman powered the offense — Darwin went three for four with four RBI and Workman hit two RBI doubles.

Bobcats junior second baseman Mikayla Wales singled to lead off the bottom of the first before Finley, a sophomore, struck out two batters. Darwin followed up Workman’s RBI double with her team-leading 17th home run to make it 3-0.
One out from safety in the bottom of the third, Camp Verde gave up two more runs. Workman drove an RBI double into left field before Darwin’s base hit to right field scored Workman.

The Bobcats scored their final two runs in the fifth. Following a leadoff walk, Workman reached on an error by Camp Verde freshman second baseman Cassandra Casillas. Darwin hit an RBI double and Workman scored on a fielding error by freshman first baseman Naydeline Barrada on the following play.

Camp Verde’s rally was in the sixth, the first time its leadoff batter reached base, loading the bases with zero outs. Cowboys junior center fielder Miranda Sharp walked before Casillas and junior third baseman Tyra Smith laid down consecutive bunt singles. Camp Verde sophomore right fielder Hailey Moore and freshman shortstop Jenna Huey hit back-to-back RBI ground outs.

Finley’s base hit scored Tyra Smith. Oium singled, but the offense ran out of steam.

Finley gave up 10 hits while striking out six and walking two. Her counterpart, Benson junior Katie Sherman, scattered three hits, struck out seven and walked two.

Sherman struck out five of the first nine Cowboys. Her first walk was to Tyra Smith, one of only a few players with experience from the 2016 championship game, in the fourth inning.
Smith was stranded. Oium singled in the fifth, and was stranded. Benson stranded eight runners through four innings.
With an underclassman-heavy starting lineup, Camp Verde had a lack of experience when the stakes were at their highest. Benson had that experience from last year’s title-winning team.

The Cowboys have a silver lining; just one starter graduates, Oium, the catcher. The Cowboys are set to be title contenders in the coming seasons.

“I’ve been here twice and I haven’t won it yet, so that’s what I want to do next year and hopefully I can come back and do it,” Tyra Smith said. “It’s pretty hard, just the fact that it’s been twice now, but I’m going to be back next year.”