Thornton's homer wakes up Rosewood

By Allen Etzler
Published in Sports on March 25, 2015 1:48 PM

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aetzler@newsargus.com

After two innings of stranding runners in scoring position, Rosewood head softball coach Shay Campbell wondered if the bats were going to come alive.

The Eagles were too impatient.

They weren't squaring up many balls.

But then Callie Thornton came to bat in the third inning. And she wasn't going to waste any time.

"I knew the pitcher was throwing a lot of strikes, so I knew I was going to attack the first pitch," Thornton said.

Thornton crushed the belt-high fastball over the center-field fence for a two-run homer, and sparked the Rosewood to an eventual 13-3, mercy-rule win over Carolina 1-A Conference foe Lakewood on Tuesday.

"I pretty much knew it was gone right off the bat because of how it felt," said Thornton who is still getting comfortable playing softball after shoulder surgery in the offseason. "It's been weird because I've only had one travel tournament since the surgery before the high school season started so I didn't know how it would hold up. But it feels pretty good.

"I've hit (a home run) every game."

Thornton's fourth homer of the season tied the game at 2-2.

The rest of the Eagles took over from there and scored 11 more runs on six hits. Rosewood's aggressive hitting and aggressive base running put pressure on the Lakewood defense, which made nine errors -- all in the third, fourth and fifth innings.

A fourth-inning error turned Macy Tyndall's hit into a run. Three batters later, Thornton's base hit snuck by an outfielder and two other Eagles scored on the play.

"I would much rather be jogging around the bases than sprinting," Thornton laughed after finishing with five RBI. "But I don't get to sprint all the way around too much so that was cool."

Yelverton hit a ground ball to right field and wound up at third.

"We started being aggressive at the plate and that showed," Campbell said. "We took advantage of some of what they did defensively and the girls kept it up at the plate. But, I was worried there for a while.

"We still made some mistakes on the base paths tonight that can't happen. But we've been preaching at these girls to be aggressive."

Yelverton would see one pitch in her next at-bat. It was a wild pitch and another Lakewood error allowed Hailey Weeks to score from first.

Weeks continued her streak of starting in the pitcher's circle for the Eagles. She came out after three innings to force the Leopards to see another speed as Tyndall took over on the mound. Tyndall gave up one unearned run and one hit in two innings.

"I think both of them did pretty well," Campbell said. "We have been letting some of the other girls get some experience pitching early because we know we're going to need them. They have done what we need them to do."