THE OFFICIAL SITE OF
Permian High School Athletics


PERMIAN'S SEASON COMES TO A CLOSE

Permian's season comes to a close

LEE SCHEIDE

Odessa American | 4/29/2017

PHOTO CREDIT: Mark Sterkel

The Permian softball team knows the danger that comes with playing any game at the Ratliff Softball Complex.

With the fences just 183 feet from home plate, every fly ball is an adventure, and that’s on a normal day.

Saturday, during a blustery Game 2 of a Class 6A bi-district playoff game against El Paso Coronado, adventure turned into disaster for the Lady Panthers.

The Lady Thunderbirds hit four home runs, the final one coming off the bat of Jacqueline Fournier in the bottom of the 10th inning for a 10-7 victory that propelled El Paso Coronado into the area playoffs against Mansfield High.

Mahkaylah Singleton, Alexis Arciniaga, Abigale Carney and Fournier all homered for the Lady T-Birds (27-5), the top seed from District 1-6A.

Permian’s season ends at 15-13-1.

Permian battled back throughout the game and had a chance to force Game 3 when it took a 6-4 lead into the bottom of the seventh inning. But El Paso Coronado rallied for a pair of runs to tie the game and force extra innings.

“All year long these girls have been resilient,” El Paso Coronado coach Ashley Perez said. “I didn’t have any doubts that they would be able to come back and win.

“We hit the ball well today, but made some mistakes and Permian took advantage of that to put pressure on us.”

Along with the long ball — the Lady T-Birds scored 13 runs in two games, 10 of them via home runs — another consistent for El Paso Coronado was starting right-hander Alexis Hamilton.

After striking out 15 in Friday’s 3-1 victory, Hamilton returned with a 21-strikeout performance in the clincher.

Permian senior Miranda Martinez didn’t start the game, but entered quickly in the first inning after Singleton’s home run gave the Lady T-Birds a 2-0 lead two hitters into the contest. Martinez went the rest of the way, striking out five.

“I thought Miranda played great today,” Permian coach Kristin Williams said. “You could see on her face that she was ready today.

“I was so proud of the girls the way they fought back all day, all season.”

After Singleton’s home run, the Lady Panthers scratched out a run in the top of the second inning when Gail Pawlik singled to lead off the inning and moved to second base on Kelsi McCall’s infield single.

Martinez laid down a sacrifice bunt to move the runners over, which allowed Pawlik to scamper home on a Hamilton wild pitch with two outs.

Arciniaga got the run right back in the bottom of the second, then watched as the Lady Panthers plated two runs in the top of the third to tie the game, 3-3.

The Lady T-Birds regained their lead in the fifth with three consecutive singles. Hamilton started the rally with a single to left and moved to second on Fournier’s single to right field.

Moments later, Hamilton scored on Rodriguez’s single to right field to put El Paso Coronado in control, but Permian refused to go quietly.

In the sixth inning, McCall doubled, then moved to third base on a wild pitch. But that was as far as she got as Hamilton struck out Aliyah Lara to end the threat.

Hamilton couldn’t escape the top of the seventh, however, as the Lady Panthers scored once to tie it up, and when Martinez hit a ball that caromed off the glove of Arciniaga at third base to drive in two more, Permian led 6-4 heading to the bottom of the seventh.

Carney led off the inning with a lazy fly-ball home run to right-center field to cut the deficit to one run. Martinez was able to get the next two hitters, but Rodriguez walked and Paola Cordova and Arciniaga hit back-to-back singles to drive in Rodriguez to force extra innings.

“We just couldn’t get the third out,” Williams said.

Both teams added a run in the ninth inning before the Lady T-Birds ended the game in the 10th.
PRIVACY POLICY | © 2024 MASCOT MEDIA, LLC