Monday night's softball game between Ridge Spring-Monetta and Wagener-Salley felt like yet another edition of Aiken County's Class A rivalry that was going to go down to the wire.
Some miscues in the field extended innings and produced runs that otherwise probably wouldn't have scored, and what might have been a tie game was still just a 5-3 deficit for Ridge Spring-Monetta heading into the bottom of the sixth inning.
As the Trojans took the field, the objective was simple - make this a quick, scoreless inning, and then give yourselves a chance to tie it or take the lead in the top of the seventh.
The game didn't make it that far.
Wagener-Salley exploded for eight runs in the inning, sending 10 batters to the plate and then sending everyone home early by reaching the 10-run lead threshold. That clinched yet another region championship for Wagener-Salley, which will head into the Class A playoffs in a familiar position as a No. 1 seed.
"Any time we clinch region, it's really big for us," War Eagles head coach Jennifer Starnes said. "Ridge Spring-Monetta's our region rival, and we don't - we didn't play our best tonight, but to do it on Senior Night just speaks volumes about how much this team wants it. I call them the Comeback Queens, because they wait to play ball later in the game. Drives me crazy, but it's a good feeling and I'm just super proud of the kids we have. We have a young group."
The War Eagles (11-7, 9-0 Region 4-A) made the Trojans (8-9, 6-3) pay for six errors and eight walks, repeatedly hitting the ball hard to put pressure on RS-M's fielders. Trojans head coach Joey Middlebrooks gave Wagener-Salley credit for its offensive approach, and he said that led to mistake after mistake by the defense.
"If we do the little things that we're supposed to do, plays on the infield that we didn't quite make tonight, we have five seniors that have been through some district championships. We fix those little mistakes, we're right there," he said. "Heck, it was a 5-3 game, but it should've been a 1-1 game because they made a couple of errors. One-run game in the top of the fifth, and then the wheels fall off tonight and we just don't make some plays."
Kylee Hooker starred in the circle and at the plate for the War Eagles, going 3-for-3 with a home run and a double with three RBI. She also struck out 10 batters, allowing only three hits and three runs. She is part of a strong sophomore class for the War Eagles, with USC Union-bound Allie Davis (who leads the team with a .457 batting average, 10 doubles, three home runs and 26 RBI) as the lone senior on the roster.
RS-M struck first, with Miley Coffey going from station to station after being hit by a pitch to lead off the top of the second. She scored from third on a bunt by Molly Robinson, giving the Trojans an early 1-0 lead.
The War Eagles responded with four in the bottom of the third, starting with Hooker's leadoff home run. Three of the runs were scored with two outs, and a couple came home on a throwing error.
RS-M got two of those runs back on a Robinson fly ball to right field that was dropped, bringing Coffey in from second. Robinson kept running, and she eventually made it all the way around to score on an errant throw.
Davis made it a two-run game again in the home half of the fourth, ripping a ball through a fielder's glove with the type of hard-hit ball that would never be scored as an error. That plated Hooker, who then got the ball back and got into a groove.
She erased a leadoff single in the top of the fifth by catching a bunt attempt and firing it to first base for a double play, then struck out three of the next four batters she faced.
Those would be the last ones of the night, as the War Eagles loaded the bases with nobody out in the bottom of the sixth and then blew the game open. Jordan Burkett hit a two-run single, and that opened up the floodgates. Hooker drove in two more with a single, and moments later the game was called.
"If I'm being honest, it hasn't been like that the whole year," Starnes said. "We have struggled, struggled, struggled. Went on Spring Break for two weeks, practiced on Spring Break and came back, and it was just like a different group of girls. Maybe they needed a little rest. We tweaked some things with our batting fundamentals, and that's been a game-changer for us."
The teams meet again Thursday at RS-M, and the Trojans are still in a good spot in the region standings with an opportunity to finish alone in second with a win. Middlebrooks pointed to the 2022 season, when his team lost a 10-inning thriller at Wagener-Salley. The Trojans bounced back to beat the War Eagles two nights later, then captured the program's first district championship and reached the Upper State tournament. All the young starters on that team are now the program veterans, so they know what it takes to win in April and May.
"We've been in position before," Middlebrooks said. "That year, we lost a tough one down here, and then they came to our place and we turned around and beat them. Every one of these girls played last year, and the experience should be there. It's just the mental toughness to stand back there and do it and not fall apart when a couple of things don't go your way. We talked about that, and we talked about that before Spring Break because we lost one we shouldn't have lost."
The War Eagles haven't looked at their youth as a problem. Starnes said they put some measures in place for the girls to hold one another accountable, which has been pivotal in their growth as a unit. They've outscored their Region 4-A opponents by a combined 127-17, and they'll look to finish off an undefeated run through the region before trying to make a deep playoff run.
"The thing about this group is they're a young group of girls, and we've got a couple of girls who have never played ball before," she said. "They're really coachable. But the fact that they don't hang their heads and they never stop, that's been our go-to thing this year. ... Never giving up and putting their head down, they're going to produce when they have to. It's been good for us."
