Ozona storms past Winters to claim softball bidistrict playoff series

Last Thursday, the Ozona High School softball team was looking back at three consecutive playoff losses. The Lady Lions, however, were determined to put a stop to that streak, and rallied to force a third game of a Class 2A bidistrict series against Winters.

On Monday at San Angelo Lake View Maidens Field, Ozona put the finishing touches on the series win, beating the Lady Blizzards 8-1.

“A lot of the girls on the field played as freshmen in a playoff series last year,” said Ozona head coach Britni Duarte, who was the assistant coach last year when the Lady Lions squeaked into the playoffs with a fourth-place district finish and were swept by Coleman.

“They were determined to get past this round. To go in and lose two in a row and be knocked out, it hurt them. But we’ve got some good winning culture going on right now, and we talk about how success builds success.”

After allowing a total of 22 runs in the first two games, Ozona's defense stiffened behind sophomore pitcher Valeria Garza and allowed just one run to the Lady Blizzards.

Garza allowed four hits but the Lady Lion defense dispatched all but one Winters' base-runner as Ozona simply dominated the final game of what had been a closer series. Winters opened with a 12-5 win but Ozona dug deep and won its first playoff game in four tries 14-10 to force the decisive third game.

"We could have easily thought, we aren't good enough to come back, that it was a replay of last year, but they decided on the bus home that they weren't going to let that happen."

The Lady Lions have matured, the coach said, and are building on the athletic program's recent successes — a district championship in basketball and district and regional championships in track and field.

"It's just the culture we've got going on here," Duarte said. "They're working hard for it."

Ozona advances to face Albany in an area-round series that starts with a single game at 5 p.m. Friday back at Lake View. The series then moves to Stanton on Monday with a 4 p.m. start followed by a third game, if necessary.

It took a while for the Ozona offense to get going in the decisive game. In the meantime, the Lady Lions executed on defense, getting out of a bases-loaded jam in the second inning with an inning-ending double play.

Ozona catcher Charli Oglesby missed on a dive attempt at a pop-up in front of home plate but Garza picked up the ball, stepped on home plate and fired to first to get the runner and end the inning.

The Lady Lions ended up with more than one "unconventional" double play against the Lady Blizzards.

"We always say go work on defense and have fun on offense," Duarte said. "And they bought into that this year. They didn’t let bases loaded overwhelm them, they stayed under control, they knew where they were going with the play and just executed."

The game was scoreless until the third inning when Krysten Webb got things going for Ozona with an RBI double.

Oglesby hit a two-run double to push the Lady Lions' lead to 3-0. Esperanza Castillo drove in another run in the third to make it 4-0.

Ozona pushed its lead to 6-0 in the top half of the fourth before Winters finally plated a run. But that was all the Lady Lions allowed, as they increased their lead to 7-1 after five innings and 8-1 in the sixth.

Offensively, the Lady Lions pounded out 14 hits and used aggressive base-running to get into scoring position. They also took advantage of miscues with the Winters' battery.

The Ozona coach said even though her young team had playoff experience, it wasn't the kind you wanted.

"Nerves kind of got to all of us in that first (game)," Duarte said. "(Tonight) they were just on. They were focused."

Amy McDaniel is a multimedia sports journalist. Send news tips to amy.mcdaniel@gosanangelo.com. Consider supporting West Texas journalism with a subscription to GoSanAngelo.com.