Lady Gators claim 9-0 road win against BG

Published 10:35 pm Thursday, April 24, 2025

By Jeff Nations

The zeros on the scoreboard started to line up a bit for Greenwood in Thursday’s road matchup against District 14 softball rival Bowling Green.

Lady Purples freshman starting pitcher Hadley Morrison was dealing early, with three perfect innings against the Lady Gators.

Did the No. 2-ranked team in the state panic? It did not.

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Greenwood broke through for three runs in the fourth, three more in the sixth and added another three-spot in the seventh to claim a 9-0 win.

Trouble did indeed come in threes for Bowling Green on Thursday.

“It’s a game where you try to start with a plan, make quick adjustments and it took us a little bit to make the adjustment tonight,” Lady Gators coach Rodney Bush said. “So we need to improve there, but once we made the adjustment we were fine. I’d just like to see us make the adjustment a little sooner.”

Held without a base runner through the first two innings, Greenwood (21-6 overall, 2-1 District 14) broke through in the top of the fourth. Savannah White led off with a single, but got thrown out by Lady Purples catcher Lola Kate Kingston trying to steal second base.

The Lady Gators kept plugging away, getting two more runners on before Macie Murray delivered a two-out RBI single to score the first run. Molly Spidel followed with an RBI single to right that was misplayed for an error that allowed a second run to come home to cap the three-run rally.

Greenwood doubled its lead in the top of the sixth. Eighth-grader Madilyn Allen led off the inning with a solo home run to left field, then Cali Huff followed with a triple and then scored on Murray’s sacrifice fly RBI. Julianne Parker brought in another run with a sac fly RBI and the Lady Gators led 6-0.

In the top of the seventh, Allen struck again with an RBI double before Huff unloaded on a pitch for her 12th home run of the season – a two-run shot over the fence in right-center that set the final score.

“We just got our timing down and started hitting the ball,” said Huff, who was 2-for-3 with a pair of RBIs. “I guess it just kind of clicked. We weren’t scoring as much as we thought we should, so I guess that kind of pumped us up in the dugout. We got ready and we just started hitting it.”

Greenwood had the benefit of having ace left-hander Abigail Byrd pitching as it took time to get the offense going. Byrd pitched a complete-game shutout, although the Lady Purples didn’t make it an easy day for the senior who has signed to play collegiately at Northern Kentucky.

Bowling Green (11-7, 1-2 District 14) put runners on in four of the first five innings, stranding a total of five runners including two at third base.

“If you were here at the game, I don’t think you felt like that was a 9-0 game,” Lady Purples coach Penny Reece said. “If you’re watching it online on GameChanger or something, you might think ‘Oh, they almost got run-ruled. It was a blowout.’ It really was not – it was a really good, competitive game going into the sixth inning.

“I thought Hadley did a great job pitching, we made some really fantastic defensive plays. We put the ball in play against one of the best pitchers in the state.”

Byrd picked up the complete-game win, allowing no runs off five hits and no walks while striking out five batters.

Allen and Spidel joined Huff with two hits in the game as the Lady Gators tallied 10 hits in all.

Greenwood was scheduled to host Christian County on Friday, while Bowling Green had a home game set against Edmonson County.

GHS 000 303 3 – 9 10 0

BGHS 000 000 0 – 0 5 1

WP: Byrd. LP: Morrison.

Sports Editor, Bowling Green Daily News

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