Win or go home, the Lady Marauders’ season was on the line. On May 2, the Maclay varsity softball team faced off against the North Florida Christian (NFC) Eagles in an away game. The Marauders would try and advance to the 2A district one championship game against Monroe. However, the Marauders fell to NFC by a large margin, as the game ended in an 8-1 Eagles domination.
“I didn’t realize that it would be the last game of my career until around the fifth inning and it started to hit me,” senior Lilly Phipps said. “For the upcoming seniors for next year I would tell them to stick with it and have fun and no matter what you’re always going to have each other so it will always be fun.”
The first three innings of the game was a lopsided affair. With several at bats, the Marauders were not able to get anything going on offense as the NFC pitching proved to be too strong to handle. The Eagles on the other hand came out firing on the offensive side, scoring one run in the first inning and two runs in both the second and third innings to create a 5-0 lead.
To create some much needed momentum, Phipps hit a homerun over the fence to give the Marauders their first run of the game in the fourth inning. However the momentum was short lived for Maclay, as no more runs were scored in the last three innings. The Eagles capitalized on Maclay’s offensive woes, and scored three more runs to end the game with an 8-1 victory.
“[Aside from the season ending] I’m glad that I was able to improve my hitting throughout the year and also learn how to keep my energy up throughout each game,” junior Molly Lamb said.
The Marauder loss ended up being their final game of the season, while the Eagles will advance to the district championship. Maclay ended the year with a 6-9 overall record.
“I encouraged the girls to be proud of the progress that we made but to not get content and individually strive to get better this summer,” head coach Mo Smith said.
