Ledger Independent – Maysville Online

Lady Bears head to Owensboro for All “A” state

Bracken County’s softball team will play in Owensboro on Saturday for the All “A” state tournament. The Lady Bears have three pool play games in hopes of advancing to Sunday’s eight-team, single elimination tournament. (Evan Dennison, The Ledger Independent)

Some Bracken County softball players were facing a tough decision.

Either prom or the state softball All “A” tournament in Owensboro on Saturday.

While it may have been tough and not fair with timing, they put themselves in a position to make their own decision and the Lady Bears loaded the bus with all but two of their team members on Friday as they make their four-hour trek to the western part of the state.

“The girls understood if they did choose prom we’d be playing the ones who were going to All “A” leading up to it. They understood and have been great about it and some of the younger girls have stepped up in their place,” Lady Bears coach Tony Green said.

Bracken County will start their All “A” state tournament run on Saturday in pool play, first facing Highlands Latin at 10 a.m. CST, then Holy Cross (Louisville) at 1:30 p.m. following up with defending state All “A” champ Lyon County at 5 p.m.

They win two out of those three, they’ll most likely head to Sunday’s eight-team, single elimination tournament.

“The ultimate goal is to win it. But we’ll take it one game at a time. First goal is to win the first game and need to win two out of three to get to Sunday. We booked rooms for two nights so that’s our plan,” Green said.

Since the Lady Bears won the 10th Region All “A” tournament on April 14 over Nicholas County, they’ve gone 4-2 that concluded with a loss at George Rogers Clark on Wednesday. While the loss was a painful one, a 3-0 defeat despite allowing just two hits, they got to play on a turf field, something they’re not accustomed to but will be doing so on Saturday at Jack Fisher Park in Owensboro.

They’ll even make a stop on Friday in their travel to get some more time on turf.

“We rented out a turf field in Elizabethtown on Friday and practice for two hours since we couldn’t get a field in Owensboro. Wednesday was actually a blessing in disguise being able to get some game time on a turf field at Clark County,” Green said. “We had a few mistakes in that game and some bad bounces on the turf we just weren’t used to. It’s good to play on a field like that leading into the All “A”.”

Green said the defense has been playing really well and anytime pitching ace Ella Johnson is in the circle, he knows the girls are confident and they feel they have as a good as a chance against anybody.

They’ll need their bats to show up more, scoring four runs in three games outside of the 46 runs in the three games they were able to put up against Augusta twice and Paris during their current 4-2, six-game stretch.

“We’ve been putting the ball in play, just need to get them in spots that find the open field,” Green said. “But the girls are fired up and have had a couple of nice practices leading into it. We’ll give it our best shot.”

It’s Bracken County’s first trip to the All “A” state tournament since 2014. They went 1-2 during that trip and failed to make the single-elimination tournament.