ABERDEEN, S.D. (KELO) — The Castlewood softball team scored late in both the semifinal and championship games on its way to a class ‘B’ state championship.
Castlewood rallied in the seventh inning to stun Arlington in the class ‘B’ semifinals, 6-5. Then the Warriors met top-seeded Alcester-Hudson in a battle for the state title.
“Definitely the way you want to end it,” Lyndsey Archer said. “You wouldn’t want a blowout, you wanted a close game.”
And a close game it was. The title bout turned into a pitcher’s duel as Castlewood seventh grader, Claire Horn held the Cubs to just two runs.
“We believe that we’ve got what it’s going to take,” Castlewood head coach Craig Horn said. “We’ve been working hard and she’s been locating very well and hitting her spots really well. I don’t know what happened tonight, but she had a little extra gear in it. It was pretty neat to see.”
“After all the work that we’ve done this year and all the hours of pitching and practicing, it just feels really surreal,” Claire Horn said.
A sixth inning single, followed by a strong defensive seventh, would help the Warriors claim a 3-2 win.
“This is how we do it, we always come up clutch,” Archer said. “We always come up from behind, we never get scared, we never doubt ourselves, we trust our abilities and we’re never scared of coming back.”
The sports year was special for Castlewood, making a class ‘B’ state softball championship the cherry on top.
“Volleyball, basketball, they’ve just been to a lot of state tournaments and they’re a very talented bunch of seniors,” Horn said. “It’s really neat, what we thought was really neat, is we got to bring these younger girls along and they learned so much, by the end of the year. Now they’ve got a state title and it’s pretty neat, pretty rewarding to see that.”
Castlewood finished the season with a 13-5 overall record.