FAYETTEVILLE -- Bentonville High survived a challenge from its cross town rivals Friday.
Bentonville collected 15 hits and defeated Bentonville West 11-6 in the quarterfinals of the Class 7A state tournament at Asbell Park. The Lady Tigers advanced to today's semifinals against Cabot at 2:30 p.m. Bryant and North Little Rock will meet at noon in the other semifinal.
Bentonville West^001^203^0—^6^4^2
Bentonville High^310^232^X—^11^15^2
Crowson, Wacaser (2), Wood (6) and Sneed. Prough and Cornell. W — Prough. L — Crowson.
Bentonville fought off West after building leads of 4-0 in the second inning and 9-3 after five. Sydney Sneed hit two home runs for the young Wolverines, who got to within 9-6 and left the bases loaded in the sixth inning.
Cailey Cochran answered with a two-run single in the bottom of the sixth to give the defending state champions an 11-6 lead. Morgan Nelson had three hits to lead Bentonville (28-1).
"Both teams competed and put it all out there on the line," Bentonville coach Kent Early said after his team's third win against West, a first-year varsity program with no seniors on its roster. "We had a good game plan on how to counteract and our kids were able to respond."
West got to within 4-3 after Bentonville jumped to a 4-0 lead after two innings. Sneed provided the big hit with a two-run home run in the fourth inning following a walk to Brittney Crowson.
Bentonville then scored five consecutive runs before another uprising by the Wolverines (21-14), who scored three runs and left the bases loaded in the sixth inning.
Maddy Prough avoided addition damage with one of her 10 strikeouts to end the inning. Prough struggled with her control and walked seven after entereing the game with only 12 walks for the season.
"She started off hot then couldn't really locate for a while," Early said of Prough, who pitched a perfect game against Rogers in conference play. "We had some self-inflicted wounds and they took advantage, like good teams do."
Leadoff batter Jazmine Dodd had two singles to go along with the two home runs by Sneed, a sophomore catcher.
"We could've laid down and quit, but we didn't," West coach Anthony Cantrell said. "I've got a lot of young kids who worked their butts off and left everything between the lines."
Bryant 3, Rogers Heritage 0
Raven Loveless and Gianna Hullett combined on a two-hit shutout against Heritage (14-14), which opened state tournament play with a 6-1 victory over Fort Smith Northside on Thursday.
Sarah Evans had two singles and a walk for Bryant, which scored one run in the first inning and two in the fourth. Loveless had an run-scoring double while Meagan Chism added two singles and a sacrifice fly.
North Little Rock 3, Rogers High 2
Katelynn McMahan pitched a three-hitter and slammed a home run for the second consecutive game to lead North Little Rock (20-6-1) past the Lady Mounties.
McMahan also homered on Thursday in a 14-1 victory over Springdale Har-Ber.
McMahan had a shutout going until the seventh inning when Courtney Storey slammed a two-run home run to right field. Rogers (16-8) put the potential tying run on second base before McMahan got Cassie Gonzalez on an infield popup to end the game.
Reagan Sperling had a double after getting three hits in the win over Har-Ber.
Cabot 8, Van Buren 6
Rylie Hamilton hit a grand slam to rally Cabot past Van Buren.
Cabot was down 4-1 in the third inning when Hamilton cleared the bases with a home run to center field. The Lady Panthers(25-5) then went ahead 7-4 with the help three errors by the Lady Pointers in the fourth inning.
Van Buren (18-10) had six errors in the game while the Lady Panthers outhit the Lady Pointers 9-7.
Sports on 05/13/2017