MYRTLE BEACH, SC — North Laurel capped off its spring break trip with a thrilling 2-1 win over Springsboro on Thursday.
The Lady Jaguars were trailing 1-0 entering the bottom of the third when Emma Carl connected with a two-run homer that turned out to be just enough for North Laurel to improve to 10-1 on the season, and 3-1 on its trip to South Carolina.
“We played a good softball team and a good game today,” North Laurel coach Chris Edwards said. “Tessa was an absolute warrior in the circle today. Really came in working hard. Springboro has a National top 30 player that hits lead off for them and a pitcher that controlled the zone. Kept us off balance a little bit too. Really good win against a high quality opponent today.”
Tessa Monhollen dominated in the pitcher’s circle, scattering five hits while allowing one earned run and finishing with 11 strikeouts.
“Tessa was good today,” Edwards said. “Scattered five hits and allowed only the one run and had 11 strikeouts. Pitched out of two jams late in the game including the seventh inning when the tying run was on third with one out. We got a couple of match ups that I liked and she got us out of it. For us to have the chance to play for the type of season we wanna have, I suspect that we will have to play several more games similar to this. Great learning experience for all of us. “
North Laurel managed only two hits in the win while overcoming an uncharacteristic four errors in the field.
“Offensively, only two hits and one walk today,” Edwards said. “Both are way down from what we’ve been producing. Of course one of those was a two run home run from Emma, who continues to hit the ball well down here. Lucy Jo with the other hit. We actually had runners in scoring position a couple of other times and couldn’t get the big hit to get the runs in.”
The Lady Jaguars will now have a week off until playing four games in three days.
“As I’ve said before, we come to Florida for these challenging games against teams we would probably never play,” Edwards said. “Quality programs, quality teams, great pitching. We played against six Division One commits this week and that’s just the ones I know about. There may have been more.
“Our girls played well, the younger girls got to see what our program is all about and what we expect them to keep working toward,” he added. “We had some great weather and played some really good softball this week. Certainly have work to do and things to get better at but a good start to the season. Now for a little rest and get ready for district play. Go Jags.”
