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Columbia left fielder Sakiya Merriex looks up after making a diving catch against Williston on Thursday night. (BRENT KUYKENDALL/Lake City Reporter)
The long ball led to a short night and a sweet victory for Williston.
It also left Columbia’s pitchers battered and bruised.
Four balls left the park, including two home runs by Olivia Davis, to lead an offense that crushed the ball all game long. Baylee Cribbs and Maci Vonderstrasse also hit homers for the Class 1A No. 1 Red Devils, who run-ruled the Tigers 12-1 in four innings Thursday night at CHS for their eighth straight win.
Madelyn Jones and McKenna O’Sullivan both struggled to cool off Williston’s bats. The Red Devils knocked in eight runs — six earned — on seven hits and four walks off the starter Jones in 2 2/3 innings, while O’Sullivan allowed four earned runs on four hits and two walks in 1 1/3 before leaving the game with an apparent knee injury.
“I think if we hit our spots they don’t (hit those home runs), but there’s not a lot to say tonight other than it just wasn’t our night,” Columbia head coach Cindy Dansby said.
Dansby originally planned to start Zoryana Hughes in the circle, but Hughes pulled herself from the lineup due to knee pain right before the game. Hughes aggravated it warming up in the bullpen during Wednesday night’s game at Gainesville.
Now with O’Sullivan potentially sidelined along with Hughes, Columbia is down to just Jones at pitcher on a varsity roster that has just 11 players.
“It’s very frustrating,” Dansby said.
Davis finished the night 2 for 3 with five RBIs. Her first home run was a 2-run shot to put Williston (19-2) up 2-0 in the first inning.
Columbia (13-5) got a run back in the bottom half of the inning thanks to an RBI single from Emily Delgado, who had two of her team’s four hits, but a six-run third inning by the Red Devils turned a tight contest into a rout.
Williston completed a 3-game season sweep, outscoring the Tigers 23-5 in the three matchups. Dansby didn’t think her team was intimidated by the Red Devils’ No. 1 ranking, but more so by the fact Columbia had already lost to them twice this season.
Once Williston got up big, a young squad featuring eight underclassmen never recovered. Not having Hughes from the start and then watching O’Sullivan go down certainly didn’t help either.
“I don’t know if they even know what their ranking is,” Dansby said. “I think it’s just more of the fact that they’re playing Williston and we’ve already played two times. The one thing I’ve noticed with this group is I think that when they don’t feel whole then I think sometimes it’s like a weakness that starts to affect them all. I think that just affected them a little bit tonight.”
Williston sent 11 batters up in the third inning, with Davis starting the big frame with a 3-run home run to make it 5-1. Savannah Rodriguez made it 6-1 with an RBI infield single and Jones then issued her third walk of the inning to load the bases, prompting Dansby to turn to O’Sullivan.
Neveah Hayes immediately hit an RBI single for a 7-1 lead before O’Sullivan finally stopped the bleeding. Columbia’s offense never put a dent in the deficit again against Williston pitcher Makenna Boyd, who scattered four hits and four walks while striking out a pair.
“It makes a difference when you hit and don’t hit,” Dansby said. “Obviously, it puts runs on the board and we’ve had a very broad spectrum of things this week from Monday to (Wednesday) night to tonight. I just think sometimes they just run out of gas and confidence, and they’ve got to stay in their group. And I could see at the end they were huddled together, but that has to happen sooner.”
The Red Devils set up the run-rule victory with four more runs in the fourth inning, all coming via a pair of two-run home runs by Cribbs and Vonderstrasse.
When the game was finally mercifully called, Dansby left her team with one message in particular with only two weeks left in the regular season.
“Evaluate themselves and evaluate as a group what we need to do to move forward after the way this week has gone and then tonight,” Dansby said. “And then pick yourselves up.”
UP NEXT
Columbia has a scheduled road game at Bradford on Tuesday a 7 p.m. though Dansby says BHS may be canceling. The next home game for the Tigers is next Thursday against Taylor County at 7 p.m.
ALUMNI NIGHT
Speaking of Thursday’s contest against Taylor County, Columbia is hosting Alumni Night with special recognition of the 10-year anniversary of the 2013 state championship team. The ceremony will be at 6:30 p.m. prior to the game.
The Tigers are inviting any former CHS softball players, staff or board to attend and be recognized on the field as a group.