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Strong storms sweep through community
A series of storms that swept through Wayne County on Wednesday afternoon and in the early morning on Thursday caused some damage and spotty power outages. The storm also dumped nearly two inches of rain locally.
J.D. Rogers, local observer for the National Weather Service, recorded a total of 1.95 inches of rain, including the late afternoon storms on Wednesday and another that occurred just after 2 a.m. Thursday.
Rogers noted that the majority of the rainfall—1.58 inches—occurred between about 4 p.m., when heavy rain moved through Wayne County, and 10 p.m.
Get the complete story in this week's edition of The Wayne County Outlook.
Lady Cards earn District title
By MELODIE PHELPS
News Editor
For the first time in school history, the Lady Cardinal fast pitch softball team earned a district championship. Wayne County defeated Russell County 3-1 in the district title game on Tuesday, May 25 at McCreary Central High School.
The win was a little sweeter because it was against the Lady Lakers, who have been a perennial power in fast pitch softball. Russell County has dominated this district and has been a regional contender for many years.
"I think we just felt like we were going to win," said Wayne County softball coach Myson Rice, as he talked about the history-making victory. "We left for the game Tuesday with that in our minds. Our kids expected to win."
The Lady Lakers had won the two regular season outings against Wayne County and had to be the favorite last Tuesday night.
Russell County had defeated Monticello 6-0 on Monday night to earn a trip to the championship game. Wayne County defeated McCreary Central 5-1 in the tourney’s opening round to advance.
While fans may have been a little surprised by Tuesday night’s win, especially fans from the other side of the lake, Rice wasn’t surprised.
He had watched his team do a turnaround from mid season, as they won 12 of their last 13 games.
"We just made a commitment to each other that we were going to start winning and we stuck with it," said Rice.
The Lady Cardinals play five seniors and four freshmen and it has proved to be a winning combination this season.
"It was a total team effort inspired by great team leadership," said Rice, as he reflected on the district tournament wins. "This team played excellent defense throughout both games and was led by an outstanding defensive effort from Atisha Gehring at second base. Her performance was sterling."
There was a lot of good efforts to praise as well throughout the tournament. Following are some of the stats to note from the two-game district tournament.
•Emily Keeton—8 at bats, 6 hits, avg. 750, 7 stolen bases, 3 runs scored, 1 RBI
•Atisha Gehring—6 at bats, 2 hits, avg. 333, 1 run scored
•Amy Russell—7 at bats, 2 doubles, avg. 295, 2 RBI’s, 1 stolen base
•Kenita Ball—7 at bats, 1 hit, avg. 143, 1 stolen base
•Chandra Edwards—5 at bats, no hits, 1 walk, 1 stolen base, 1 run scored
•Kasey Mann—6 at bats, 2 hits, avg. 333, 2 runs scored
•Natalie Brown—6 at bats, 3 hits, avg. 500, 1 RBI, 1 run scored
•Sasha Chaplin—7 at bats, 2 hits, avg. 295
•Elizabeth Cowan—6 at bats, 2 hits, avg. 295, 1 RBI
Rice also noted the efforts of freshman pitcher Elizabeth Cowan, who pitched all 14 innings of the tournament. Rice said Cowan had her best outing of the year, facing a total of 57 batters over the two-day stretch. She gave up only 2 runs and 17 hits.
Following Tuesday night’s win, the team celebrated with a ride through downtown Monti-cello on a fire truck.
"The kids were really happy. It did me good just to watch them enjoy it," said Rice.
Rice noted the team has now achieved three of its goals for this season—winning three district games, finishing at 500 on the season and winning the district.
The Lady Cardinals hope to take a regional win this week. Wayne County played South-western in the opening round of the 12th Region Tournament on Tuesday at Russell County, after this edition had gone to press.
Complete details will be included in the next edition of The Outlook.
Get the complete story in this week's edition of The Wayne County Outlook.
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