KINGSPORT— John Travolta wasn’t doing any dance routines on Lady Rebel Diamond, but Happy Valley was pulling out all the stops needed to live another day in the District 1-AA softball tournament being played at Sullivan South.

Continuing with their season’s trend, the Lady Warriors got out of the gate slowly but did enough to win behind the bat of Olivia Kelly and the consistent pitching of senior Kalee Johnson to send the Johnson County Lady Longhorns packing for the season with a 2-0 win.

“I was very happy, I think they stepped up,” said Lady Warrior coach Bonnie Peters. “We hit the ball hard, just at somebody, and we have to get some of those to go for hits.

“They are really coming together as a team. We are just going to have to come out from the get go and get the bats on the ball tomorrow.”

With the score knotted at 0-0 heading into the bottom of the fourth inning, Happy Valley managed to generate the game’s first run.

Johnson worked a walk to lead off the inning. A single off the bat of Kenzie Davis advanced Johnson to second.

Kelly spanked a sharp single that allowed Johnson to race all the way home from second base to give the Lady Warriors the go-ahead run, 1-0.

Meanwhile, the Lady Longhorns just couldn’t manage to put enough hits together to manufacture a run as Johnson’s pitches had a lot of movement giving the Lady Longhorns a headache the entire contest.

Johnson County collected only four base knocks the entire contest against Johnson.

While the Lady ‘Horns were struggling at the plate, Kelly, the Lady Warriors sophomore catcher, was a spark plug for Coach Peters squad as she once again brought another run home for insurance in the bottom of the sixth.

Davis was in the mix as well as she slapped a hard double to the fence to get the sixth inning off on the right foot. Kelly then stepped to the plate and roped a triple that easily scored Davis.

“The pitches were kind of right at me, and I just had to step up and hit it,” said Kelly on her performance. “We were a little nervous at the beginning but we just had to pick each other up. Kalee was really strong on the mound, and I just felt real comfortable when I went out.”

With the two-run lead, Johnson finished off the Lady ‘Horns by striking out two of the three batters she faced in the top of the seventh inning.

Happy Valley has little time to rest as they will face Sullivan East today at 5 pm in a loser’s bracket elimination game.

Should the Lady Warriors win, they will turn around in the night cap and play the Elizabethton Lady Cyclones for a shot at the regional tournament at stake in the loser’s bracket final.

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Johnson County…..000  000  0 –  0  4

Happy Valley……..000  101  x –  2  7

Brianna Snyder and Brittney Brooks. Kalee Johnson and Olivia Kelly.

WP: Johnson. LP: Snyder.

Game 2

Winner’s Bracket Final

Unicoi Co. …..7

Elizabethton…2

The big, bad wolf huffed and puffed and couldn’t blow the little pigs house down much like the Elizabethton Lady Cyclones struggled against Unicoi Co. in the winner’s bracket final.

The Lady Cyclones huffed and puffed but couldn’t put out the fire the Lady Blue Devils stirred up late in the contest as Unicoi Co. stung Elizabethton with a 7-2 loss.

Elizabethton had the Lady Devils number in the regular season, but Unicoi Co. came out after a sluggish opening two-innings and tore the cover off the softball in sending the Lady Cyclones to the loser’s bracket.

The Lady Cyclones opened like gang-busters in the first inning scoring their only two runs of the contest as Macie Herrmann laced a single and stole second base.

Lauren Brickey followed with a single and took second base uncontested placing Lady Cyclones at second and third with one out.

Abbi McKinney collected Herrmann with an RBI-single while Allison Riddle brought home Brickey for the 2-0 lead.

Lady Cyclone hurler Kellie Cunningham breezed through the first two frames without  a hitch retiring all six Lady Devil batters without a base runner.

It looked like the third inning would be the same as the Lady Cyclones got the first two Unicoi Co. batters out before the Lady Devils put together a two-run rally to knot the game at 2-2.

Ashley Edwards and Haley Hawkins scored after collecting singles as Hawkins recorded an RBI scoring Edwards and a double by Ashley Padgett scored Hawkins.

Unicoi Co. blew the game open in the top of the sixth and seven innings scoring three in the sixth on an inside the park home run by Cassie Foster that plated Halie Padgett ahead of her.

Ashley Edwards followed by going yard for a solo home run to make it 5-2 in favor of the Lady Devils.

With the two insurance runs in the top of the seventh, the Lady Devils now know it will take someone beating them twice to take the district title.

Elizabethton awaits the winner of the Happy Valley and Sullivan East game at 6:30 pm tonight. If Elizabethton advances, they would have to take two straight over Unicoi Co. for the title.

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Unicoi Co. …. 002  003  2 –  7

Elizabethton…200  000  0 –  2

WP: H. Padgett. LP: Cunningham.